


Lokiday

by Artemis_Day



Series: Lokidayverse [2]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Drama, Drunkeness, F/M, Heart to Hearts, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Redemption, Sexual Content, Smut, silliness, time loops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:26:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 121,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Day/pseuds/Artemis_Day
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm sorry, Dr. Foster, it just doesn't make any sense.  People don't fall in love after only knowing each other for one day!"  "With all due respect, Agent Romanov, it's been a VERY long day."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prologue for a story I've had in my head for several weeks. So far, I've only posted this on my tumblr and nowhere else. I've decided to put it here as well, both as incentive to continue and because I just want more people to read it (hopefully provide some feedback and all). Once I've gotten some more chapters downs, I'll most likely start posting on my other sites as well. I can't say for sure when that will be, though.
> 
> Until then, I hope you enjoy!

_Day 65: Jane Foster_

Jane gets a paper cut.

She pauses turning the page of her magazine, and brings her index finger level with her eyes. A neat trail of red blood slides down the pad. She presses her thumb against it.

The wound stings.

She presses harder.

When she’s done, her fingers stick together, and she meets slight resistance separating them. Her thumb is stained with blood. She flexes the joints experimentally, lips puckered. Jane kisses the air and sucks in a breath. Then, she’s on her feet and off the tall lab chair.

All around her are half finished equations and equipment strewn around haphazardly. The walls are covered in pictures of various constellations she learned about in elementary school. Those not on the wall stick to her shoes when she steps on them. She hasn't cleaned up her lab in a long time. There’s no point in trying anymore.

She reaches the sink and runs cool water over her entire hand. She entertains the idea of rubbing soap into the wound. That would hurt like hell.

Jane doesn't do this, but she does marvel at how far gone she already is for the millionth time in what feels like days.

 _Feels like,_ because it really should have been days.

It’s not, though.

It’s just one.

Just one, single, solitary day that's gone by.

Jane snorts and walks back to her seat. She swipes the magazine off the table, throwing it at the opposite wall. She doesn't care, she can’t read the damn thing anyway.

SHIELD had been so accommodating when sending her off into thinly veiled hiding. They set her up with colleagues that spoke fluent English, and were fairly close to her in age so they’d have plenty to talk about. Her bed had nicer linens than a five star hotel, and the equipment she’d been given to work with had reduced her to an excited child at Disneyland the first time she saw it.

And yet they still couldn't get her one measly magazine in English. How typical.

The useless ream of paper hits the floor with a satisfying ‘flop’, and then Jane feels an icy chill run through her. She shivers, more at the temperature drop than low, ominous chuckle that follows.

“That’s not polite.”

Jane closes her eyes. She doesn't want to look in that mirror on the opposite wall and have to stare at his smarmy face right now. Maybe if she keeps quiet, he’ll go away and never come back. Or maybe he’ll just talk more.

“Someone’s going to have to pick it up.”

“No one comes in here but me,” she says. “Even if they did, what do I care?”

He tsks. If Jane were two feet taller and a million times stronger, she’d punch his face all the way in and then maybe rip his tongue out for good measure. Let’s see him tsk at her then!

“Now, now, Jane Foster, you don’t wear apathy well.”

She turns around. She was going to eventually, so she might as well get it over with. His bright green eyes stare down at her, a small smile gracing his features. His stance is calm, collected and arrogant. In short, everything Jane expected of him.

Loki was a lot of things, but never a disappointment. Not to her.

Now fully facing him, Jane notices he’s in full battle garb. He even has that crazy helmet on. Maybe he’s going to fight again, or maybe he’s got another trick for her up his sleeve. She’d put neither above him. At least now she has a comeback.

“And you don’t wear those antlers well, but it’s never stopped you.”

His smile vanishes, and Jane smirks, feeling accomplished. Full blown laughter builds, but she doesn't let it out yet. He exhales through his nose, fingers curling into a ball. A long time ago, this used to terrify her. Now, she just wants to laugh harder.

She doesn't feel like alienating him further, though, not this time. He hasn't been around for three ‘days’ and she doesn't care to be apart from him. That just means she has to face the fact that she actually _wants_ him around. It’s a feeling equivalent to getting repeatedly kicked in the gut and winded.

Jane moves away from him, walking briskly to the mini-refrigerator in the corner where her endless supply of bottled water is kept. She pulls out two, opens one and tosses the other over her shoulder. She knows he’ll catch it.

“So,” she says conversationally, as if this super powered mythical figure and potential world conqueror who once almost destroyed her hometown was just another girlfriend of hers. “What’s on the agenda for today? You’re all dressed up and ready to go. You must have something big planned.”

He doesn't answer.

“Gonna cause some destruction?”

He still doesn't answer.

“You know, burn down all the buildings, slaughter all the innocents, kick all the puppies, anything?”

Nothing.

And now Jane is getting fed up, not to mention confused (definitely not concerned). He’s usually way more talkative than this.

She faces him. His eyes are on her, but his mind is elsewhere. He sees something Jane cannot, something invisible and directly in front of her from the looks of it. She really hates when he gets like that, when he closes off completely and never explains himself. He seems to go back and forth between treating Jane like a person, and like she’s just a bug he can squash under his foot. Jane’s not exactly in the mood for that today.

“Don’t tell me you’re doing this for me,” she says mockingly. If there’s one way to get to Loki… “Because I’ll be honest with you, you look much better without that helmet on. It’s very unflattering.”

She blinks her eyes, and he’s right in front of her. Jane stares at his armored chest nonchalantly. She wonders when he’ll realize the novelty of that trick wore off ‘days’ ago.

“Do not test me,” he growls.

Jane tries to ignore the speeding up of her heartbeat and the building heat in her stomach. Of course he has to use _that voice_ when threatening her. Of course he knows exactly what that husky tone of his does to her every single time. And, of course, this whole miserable situation has turned her into a borderline suicidal masochist who just _has_ to keep pushing him.

“Just admit that you’re as bored as I am,” she says. “You probably thought about going after your brother and the Avengers today, but then you realized there’s no point. There’s no point in _anything_ unless we can find a way out of this.”

His frown deepens with every word out of her mouth. His eyebrows knit together in a scowl, and his hands ball into fists. Jane could swear his eyes flash red for a second. It excites her about as much as it used to terrify her, and that’s a whole other batch of implications she absolutely must avoid dwelling on. She kind of needs what little sanity she has left, thank you very much.

Jane’s already seen his Jotunn form twice, which is two more times than Loki would have liked. He still won’t explain why he hates his heritage so much. Jane’s asked him more times than she can count, and all she gets is silence, or commands to be silent, or screaming and cursing before he disappears to God only knows where for several ‘days’ at a time. The most she’s ever gotten out of him is that the Frost Giants are savage monsters who would rip the flesh from her bones if she gets too close.

She doesn't really get it. He’s not all that scary with blue skin and red eyes and no other noticeable changes in appearance. Hell, the blue people in Avatar were creepier looking. If Jane were to fear Loki for anything, it would be the fact that he’s a psychotic mass murderer bent on world domination who could tear her head off with his bare hands if he wanted to. That knowledge, like so many other things, had lost it’s edge a long time ago. Even when he bares down on her like this, so much bigger than her, eyes speaking of dark intent, Jane can’t bring herself to fear him.

She could still fear what emotions he _did_ bring out in her, though.

“You should watch your tongue around me, Mortal,” he says with _that voice_ again. Why always _that voice_? “You might not like the consequences if you don’t.”

The underlying threat is palpable. There are so many different ways he could carry it out, too. Jane won't pretend not to know what they are. They spill incoherently into her mind all at once. She knows who Loki is and what he is and what he can do. He’s been nothing if not eager to show her in the previous ‘days.’

Jane smiles innocently, he hates that. She runs a hand across his shoulder and down his chest, he likes that.

She pulls herself closer to him, their faces inches apart. She supports her body with one hand on the table. It doesn't slide away from her as it should. Trust Loki to prepare for this. She doesn't see them leaving this room anytime soon.

“Really?” She blows in his ear. He _loves_ that. “Because I think you’re all talk.”

He seizes her by the arms, pulls her down roughly, and then his lips are on hers, hard and unforgiving. A moan is caught in Jane’s throat, she doubts he’ll relinquish her mouth long enough for her to let it out. His large hands are everywhere at once. One minute, he’s fondling her breast through her shirt, the next he’s running them up and down her legs, coming so close to her core that Jane feels she‘ll come apart at the seams if he doesn't touch her soon.

He _does_ know how to tease.

His tongue forces it’s way in. There is no fight for dominance this time, because it’s clear who is in control and that he intends to keep it that way. Jane’s own hands move across the metal of his armor. That damnable armor he just had to wear today. His casual (in the loosest possible sense) clothes are much easier to remove. He usually steps in with that fancy magic of his pretty quickly. In fact, he should have by now. Is this what he meant by ‘consequences?’

Loki snakes an arm around her thin waist, hoisting her up and on the table. As soon as Jane’s back makes contact, she is hit by a blast of ice cold from below. It doesn't take a scientist to figure out that somewhere in the millisecond it took him to do all this, he also magicked her clothes off. Jane rolls her eyes and thinks of commenting on this, but then his tongue is in her mouth and coherent thought is but a distant dream.

He gets up on top of her, never once breaking the kiss. She brings her hands up to his warming face and runs her fingers through his thick hair, down the back of his neck, to the collar of his undershirt and dammit all, _why is he still dressed?_

He smirks against her lips.

“Frustrated, my dear?”

Jane wants to slap him so badly right now. Instead, she kisses him harder. He groans in response and raises her up a little so her chest is arched into his. He wrenches his lips away and Jane cries out in protest. She stops complaining when he moves down to her neck, and then her breast. As his tongue swirls around her nipple, Jane struggles to come back to herself.

There is a digital clock on the wall marking the time as ten after four in the afternoon. This gives them plenty of time to go about their routine. To make stiff conversation, to try once again to find out what’s happened to them and how to stop it, to descend into yet another pointless argument about nothing, to threaten and be threatened with death and injury and a bunch of other nasty things, to fuck each other senseless in bed and on tables and on the floor and in the shower and against the wall and on top of the bathroom sink and in the mess room and in her direct superior’s office (boy, was _that_ ever memorable).

Then the next ‘day’ comes along and, like everything else around them, the cycle repeats anew.

No changes.

_No changes._

Jane sometimes wonders what her friends and family would think if they could see her now, naked with her legs spread underneath a psychopathic Norse God.

Her mother wouldn't like it.

Erik wouldn't like it.

Darcy… would congratulate her on getting laid.

Jane can’t help giggling. Loki, who has been trailing open mouthed kisses up her neck, bites down hard and makes her gasp. She fists his hair as he licks a hot line back up to her mouth. He re-claims it, pulling her head up slightly with one hand while the other continues to travel.

Her arms are around his waist, and he is still fully dressed.

Bastard.

His lips are relentless, his tongue even more so. She feels deft fingers between her legs, and shamelessly moans into his mouth when they stroke her. She writhes beneath him, knowing that’s exactly what he wants.

Loki always gets what he wants from her.

 _‘Remember Jane,’_ she tells herself when he strokes her again, and then finally, with a wave of his hand, is as naked as she is. _‘Three benefits to dealing with Loki Laufeyson. Remember them!’_

Benefit number 1: He is, so far, the only other person in the world who knows what’s going on.

She feels the muscles in his back, lean, but rock solid. He’s shifted positions, so that his erection is pressed firmly against her.

Benefit number 2: As the only other person who knows what’s going on, and as a powerful sorcerer with a genius level intellect, he’s also the only other person in the world who can help find a way out of this.

He removes his lips from hers again, and Jane immediately attacks his neck, returning the favor with a bite of her own. Loki growls in response, and Jane knows he’s going to make her pay for that.

She looks forward to it.

Benefit number 3…

He steadies her hips with his hand, and uses magic to keep the rest of her restrained. Jane finds she can still work her mouth, though, when he thrusts into her and the friction and sheer pleasure of it all makes her scream.

…He’s _spectacular_ in bed.


	2. Day 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is extremely important, so PLEASE READ. 
> 
> There may be some discrepancies in time with this story. I have seen The Avengers four times, the last one being just a few days ago on Pay Per View. I unfortunately do not own the DVD yet, still working on that. My point is that I'm not clear on the passage of time between the attack on the Helicarrier and the Chitauri's invasion of Manhattan. For the sake of the story, I'm going to assume that at least one night passed between the two. I know that's probably not accurate, but the story won't work well otherwise. 
> 
> Call it AU if you want. I think of it more as artistic license. Odds are, I'm just over-thinking it and none of you care about this unless you are nit-picky like me. I just wanted to put that out there in case I get questions. Feel free to ask if you have more, though. I will answer to the best of my ability.
> 
> And, as always, I hope you enjoy the chapter! It starts the process of explaining what the hell was going on in the prologue. I'm sure you are all wondering about that.

**LOKIDAY**

_Day 1: Jane Foster_

**_'Come on Elieen, Oh I swear  
At this moment, you mean everything'_ **

Jane cracks an eye open.  Florescent light hits her and makes her close it again.  She shifts to the far side of the bed, which is warm thanks to the facility's excellent heating system.  She moves as far away from the clock/radio as she can, too tired to think of just turning it off.

 _'With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess  
Verge on dirty  
Ah come on Eileen.'_

Someone knocks on Jane's door, sharp, no-nonsense raps she'd know anywhere.

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done."

"I know," Jane says in response, though more to herself and not loud enough for the woman outside to hear.

"Do not make us wait for you."

"Right, right, right"

She says that softly too.  It's possible she was heard anyway, because the footsteps she hears next are unexpected.  Normally, Dr. Ahlberg stands and waits for her to get ready, so she can escort her to the meeting room for breakfast.  It's pretty nice of her, considering she's usually a cold, humorless woman who cares little for anything not work related.  One of Jane's new co-worker's joked once that they were a lot alike.  Jane laughed it off then, but she wonders now if that's going to be her in another thirty years.

At least she has her friends; Darcy and Erik and the people here.

And, of course, she has Thor.

Or _had_ Thor.

She thinks.

It's really kind of vague.

Because they'd had all of three days together, and Jane spent most of them thinking him an insane, albeit sweet and handsome, homeless person who just so happened to look really good shirtless.  

Then he turned out to be the really real God of Thunder, and then there had been that kiss, and then he blasted off back to his realm to face down his psychotic brother.  And that was the end of that.

Jane hadn't seen Thor in over a year, never got any confirmation that he was alive or dead.  She had no idea what happened or why he hadn't come back yet.  The worst case scenario was that Loki had killed him, and that was one notion she absolutely refused to entertain.  It was drowned out by images of him safe and alive and smiling down at her and how great it would be when she got him back to earth and all the wrinkly old men who laughed at her theories had to eat their words.

Then, one week ago, she discovered that not only was Thor back on earth, but so was his brother.  Apparently, Loki was trying to take over the planet, and Thor was helping to bring him down.  That was the extent of Jane's knowledge on the subject.  Information was hard to come by since those SHEILD agents who first brought her here had left.  On this remote island, the only contact with the outside world comes from the ferry that brings food and supplies once a week.  To her understanding, that day is today.  Hopefully, they'll bring some breakfast muffins or waffles, because as good as the food here is, she's getting tired of bacon and eggs every morning.

Jane goes to the small bathroom and looks in the mirror.  Her hair is a mess, but some liberal brushing, followed by a dab of hairspray, takes care of that.  She's always had very manageable hair, thank the Lord.  She brushes her teeth fast and doesn't bother with make-up.  

Dressing is a simple matter of changing shirts and pulling her pants on.  She's found it easier to sleep in just a t-shirt and panties since arriving here.  That heating system works just a little too well during the night.

After slipping on a pair of white sneakers, Jane gathers her papers together, and someone else comes knocking.  They knock loudly and repeatedly.

"Come on, Jane!  Get moving," a younger, much more pleasant voice than Dr. Ahlberg's shouts.  "If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast.  And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

 _'I think I'd pay to see that,'_ Jane says to herself.  She smiles and stretches, fully awakening her tired muscles.

She's ready now for another day of work.  Another day missing those cool New Mexico nights with Darcy talking her ear off and then ignoring her in favor of her beloved ipod.  Another day fearing for the future of earth.  Another day wondering when she'll see Thor again and pick up where they left off.  Another day fearing that day would never come.

For Jane Foster, it's just another day.

**  
 _Day 1: Loki Laufeyson_

Sleep doesn't come easy for Loki, not since he fell from the shattered Rainbow Bridge and landed in _His_ realm.  It's not uncommon for him to go days at a time without a hint of shut eye, no worse for the wear the next morning.

This is why, when one of his 'henchman' shakes him awake on the day he takes his first true step towards ruling this realm, his initial response is surprise.  He jerks a little in his half asleep state.  It's like he's a boy again on one of Thor's ill conceived hunting trips, sleeping under the stars with one eye open, always on guard for bilshtipe attacks.  He blinks, taking in an unnaturally blue gaze that speaks of complete obedience.

To him.

Just like the rest of the world soon will.

"Sir," the nameless man says.  "We're ready to go."

To his left, the impossible glow of the tesseract fills the room, irresistible in it's power.  Loki averts his eyes, nodding in the man's direction.  The silent command is understood and met, leaving Loki alone to watch his labors pay off and his true life's purpose come one step closer to being met.  He glances at a passing man's watch.  It's 3 o'clock in the morning.  The sun, he knows, has yet to rise.  By the time it does, his army will be ready, and this silly little realm will have no idea what hit it.

Loki steps into the small crowd of his minions.  They buzz around him, to and froe, all in preparation for the upcoming assault.  He spots Dr. Selvig overseeing the handling of the tesseract.  It's placed back in it's case for travel, and the good Doctor takes it and gently loads it in the car.  Several of the SHIELD agents he'd managed to obtain flank him, weapons at the ready even though there is not yet a chance for ambush.  It's times like this Loki almost misses having Barton around.  For a Midgardian, the man was a skilled warrior, and a valuable asset while he'd lasted.  He imagines Barton and Thor would have gotten along splendidly once upon a time.  A shame he'll have to die now with the rest of those pitiful Avengers.

A half smile forms, morphing into a sinister grin when Loki steps into the back seat of the car with Dr. Selvig.  The man's head rests against the window.  His eyes are wide and his expression serene, but it's hard to hide the exhaustion brimming.  He'd been hard at work these past few days, going without even an hour's sleep, but nothing can be done about it.  Opening the portal is first priority.

The engine starts and they're off.  The city of Manhattan is on the horizon, they'd be there in just a few short hours.  Loki watches it grow closer, waiting for the moment that eyesore of a tower would come into view.  It will be the site of the launch of his invasion.  Oh, if only he could see the look on Stark's face when he figures it out.

Because Loki knows that he will.  Tony Stark isn't called a genius for nothing. Loki knows what a grand battle awaits him, once his false brother and the others regroup.  He feels a great pulling in his stomach, anticipation for the moment they all fall before him, be it in death or subjugation.  He never thought he'd understand why Thor so passionately craved war and bloodshed.  Now he does.

The city looms nearer, as the moon begins to sink and the sun ascends, and it's truly morning now.  A brand new day.

For Loki Laufeyson, it's the first day of the rest of his life.

**  
 _Jane Foster_

Jane's favorite part of the day is after lunch.  There is a two and a half hour period where she has no responsibilities.  No projects to look over or meetings to attend or time to think on how she's only here because she once let a Norse God sleep in her house and not because she actually earned it.

On alternating days, she tells herself that isn't true.  Well, it _is_ true, but it's not the only reason she's here right now.  Clearly, they wouldn't have taken her if they didn't think she and her research where worthwhile. Because this is a pretty prestigious place, this observatory.  It's been mentioned so many times in so many journals she's read, but it was never somewhere she dreamed she'd find herself welcomed, even if just to consult.  However, it's not a place she ever believed would waste money on a fancy private jet either.  That's how Jane first knew something was up.  As if the men in black suits and sunglasses who looked rather suspiciously like that Agent Coulson guy escorting her weren't tip-off enough.

Now, Jane can only wait.  Several days go by, and she hears nothing.  She knows Thor is here on Earth, but where?  

And when will he contact her?

Will he contact her at all?

Those are questions Jane doesn't feel like answering, and this is why the two and a half hours after lunch are her favorite part of the day.

She spends them in the smallest research lab with Jacobine and Hilda, who fill that annoying, yet endearing void in her life left by Darcy Lewis, and then some.  Speaking of which, Jane will have to get back in touch with her when this is all over.  She actually really misses her.  The lab is empty until three o'clock, when Dr. Ahlberg arrives.  She takes her meals alone, and long after everyone else is already full, for reasons no one knows but everyone speculates on.

Jane sits on a high stool with her back against the wall.  She's careful not to apply her full weight, so the chair stays firmly under her and doesn't slide out and send her falling on her ass.  She made that mistake on her first day, thankfully alone at the time.  The pain lingered for two days regardless.

Jacobine and Hilda are to her left, experiments and reports abandoned for a time, in favor of that most unwinding and potentially dangerous past time: girl talk.

"I'd never had a sip of alcohol before that night," says Jacobine, her sweet face wistful as she remembers college days long since passed.  She's a curvaceous woman with bob cut blonde hair and a tiny pug nose.  She has the warmest smile Jane has ever seen and the personality to match.  So long as she's had her morning coffee.  "It was probably the craziest thing I ever did, but I lost the bet and I'm not one to go back on my word."

"Hmmm" Hilda hums and rolls her shoulders.  She's tall, taller than any other woman Jane has ever seen.  Her hair is auburn and forever pulled back into a flawless ponytail.  She wears layers and layers of make-up, and only because she really loves to put it on.  There's no one to impress around here.  The one man close enough to them in age is well known to already be taken, and by another man no less.  It's at least not so trashy that she looks like a clown.  No, Hilda is a strikingly beautiful woman, with or without the make-up.  Or so Jane imagines, she's never actually seen Hilda without it.  "And all you had were a couple of beers.  Pfft- that is not crazy, my friend."

Jacobine scowls and puts her hands on her hips.  It's more adorable than scary.

"Well, we can't all be as crazy as you."

"Yes, and you never will be, much as I hate to break it to you."

Jacobine full on pouts, and Hilda laughs and pulls her into a one-armed hug.  Jane watches them out the corner of her eye.  She hasn't known either of them for long, but it becomes clear almost immediately that these two were pretty much born together.  Jane's never had a friend like that.  She had a childhood best friend, of course, one who out of the blue decided she didn't like Jane anymore right before fifth grade and never spoke to her again.  Not a year earlier, they'd been proclaiming each other their best friend and long lost twin sister that they'd be friends with forever.  How fickle people could be.

Jane never had anyone like that again, Darcy being the closest she ever got.  If only they'd had more time together. Jane once again reminds herself to call her as soon as possible.  Maybe after she's gotten a hold of Thor again.

Assuming she ever does.

As Jane tumbles headfirst into thoughts of bright blue eyes and boyish smiles that she'd been trying really hard to avoid (this is supposed to be her peace time, dammit), she's completely oblivious to the sound of her name being called.

"Jane?  Hey, Jane?"  Jacobine comes to stand right in front of her, waving in her face to break her from her thoughts.

"What?"  Jane, slightly shaken, squeaks out.

Hilda snorts behind them.

"Are you alright, Jane?"  Jacobine says, concern evident.  "You looked kind of upset just now."

"Knowing Jane," Hilda says before Jane can even begin to formulate a response.  "It's one of two things.  Either there was a problem with this morning's re-calibration of the catadioptric telescope, or it's guy trouble."

 _'Damn her'_ Jane thinks.  Much as she likes Hilda, she really, really hates her sometimes.

"Re-calibration went fine," Jacobine says, shrugging.

Hilda smirks, and this is definitely one of those times and also Jane hates her smug-face _so much_.

"I see" she says, sauntering over.  "So tell us about the guy, Jane.  I hope he's hot, because a girl like you should go for no less than absolutely gorgeous."

_'Oh believe me, he is.'_

Jane thinks this, because there's no way in hell she's going to say it aloud.  So far, no one's told her that she can't tell anyone about Thor and the existence of Asgard.  It's kind of obvious, and she thinks maybe that's why.  Or maybe SHIELD just doesn't care and is going to let the world know about them anyway.  What with everything else going on, Jane wouldn't be surprised.  But the last thing she needs right now is too much attention and too many questions.  Telling the girls about Thor guarantees both.  She's going to have to face it someday, she knows, just not yet.  For now, she likes having a little peace.

"He's just some guy I knew a while back," she says, as vague as possible even though she knows that won't be nearly enough for them.

"A hot guy, right?"

Jane rolls her eyes, and apparently that translates to a 'yes' because Jacobine and Hilda break out in giggles.

"I knew you had it in you," Hilda says.  "Tell me all about him."

Jane looks at them, sees the expectation and thirst for answers in their eyes, and knows there is no way around this.  

"He's uh..." she stops and lowers her head for a moment.  "I didn't really know him for long.  I mean, we liked each other a lot, but he had to leave.  He had... family troubles."

Hilda exhales through her nose, shaking her head in an over the top manner.

"Family troubles?  Yeah, right.  If I had a dime for every time I heard that one."  She walks away, over to the bookcase where an old science text has been left open.  She flips through it carelessly.  "Reminds me of my first college boyfriend.  Now _he_ was something else.  Handsome, intelligent, _great_ in bed... and we spend five months together and then all of a sudden, nothing!  He stops taking my calls, he won't answer my e-mails, he avoids me everywhere- it's like I'm a complete stranger to him."

"So what did you do?" asks Jacobine.

Hilda smiles devilishly.

"I slept with his brother, of course."

Jacobine chokes on her own spit. Jane can't say she's shocked by the answer, but she honestly kind of likes how satisfied with herself Hilda clearly is.  If there's one thing Jane could call her favorite thing about Hilda, it's that innate self-confidence that so many people sorely lack.  Jane has to wonder how other people who've heard this story reacted, because she just knows she and Jacobine aren't the first to hear it.

"Well, I don't think I'll be doing that," Jane mutters, bringing her cup of hot chocolate to her lips.  

The hot liquid just barely touches her tongue when the door slams open, and an out of breath, pale faced intern whose name Jane doesn't know peers in.

"What the hell?"  Hilda exclaims.

"You-" the intern gasps for air.  "You three-  you have to come- to the TV room- you have to see this!"

He runs back out without another word.  Jane gets to her feet, ignorant of Hilda's stare and Jacobine's questions.  She doesn't understand what she's doing, why she has this intense and undeniable feeling that this is important and requires her attention.  She runs after the intern, unaware and not caring if her companions are following.  She finds him running down the hall, and her gut feeling is reinforced by the fact that he's not alone. There's an entire crowd running alongside him.  Jane is glad for that, because she doesn't know the way to the TV room from Dr. Ahlberg's lab.  They run for longer than she expected, and Jane's legs are burning by the time she reaches a set of double doors that everyone is filing through.  

Jane squeezes her way in, pushing passed a sea of white lab coats until she's found a free space in front of the big screen TV, where some kind of newscast is playing.  The voices are in Norwegian, Jane can't make out a single word.  She curses her complete inability to grasp another language (it's plagued her since high school when she barely passed Spanish with a C).

Then she sees Thor, and it no longer matters.

It's only for a split second, and he's moving fast and the footage is grainy, but she'd know that face anywhere.  He's fighting some kind of robotic monster, Jane can't even begin to understand what it is.  The camera pans away from him, much to her anger.  The next thing Jane sees is a red and gold blur.  Ironman.  He's flying after another one of those creatures on a bizarre flying machine.  They zoom right passed the Empire State Building.

Manhattan?

Jane's mouth falls open.  She reaches blindly for something to sit on and finds the coffee table.  It will have to do.  For the next ten minutes before the video suddenly cuts out, Jane watches with growing horror.  She sees Thor several more times, looking worse and worse and fighting more and more of whatever those things are.  Ironman makes a few more appearances, along with a man in a red, white and blue costume with a star spangled shield, a man on top of a building shooting arrows, an enormous green creature who takes up the entire screen.  She's also pretty sure she saw someone in black riding one of those flying machines.

Then comes the time when the camera focuses on another.  He's riding a flying machine, outfit unlike anything she's ever seen before, and standing calmly in deep contrast to all the others.  The newscaster yells frantically, and all around her, people are gasping and talking amongst themselves.  Jane hasn't a clue what they're saying, but for once, she doesn't need to.

Because she knows the instant she sees him who this man is.  

It's strange, because she's never seen him before.  Thor never told her what he looked like.

But somehow, some way, she still knows.

Jane Foster swallows back bile and looks at the face of Loki for the first time in her life.

**  
 _Loki Laufeyson_

The city around him is a mess.  His Chitauri army is doing their job well.

He only hopes they don't get too excited and destroy everything beyond repair.  From what he understands, New York City extremely important to the rest of the world.  One of the most famous cities, making in a perfect spot for his introduction to Midgard as it's new King.  That doesn't mean he wants it completely leveled, though.  Once he was firmly in control, he would re-build it to his liking.  The city as it once was would be a slum compared to what he'd turn it into.  

Until then, Loki had an army to control, and several incessant ants to crush beneath his boot.

Unless he's mistaken, one of them was just about to launch an attack on him right now.  Loki looks straight ahead, and hears a whizzing sound that tells all.  So that's where Barton's been hiding.  

The arrow sails, aimed at his head with enough power to kill a lesser man.  Loki gives no reaction, no indication that he knows until the last second, when he whips up and catches it.  With the thin piece of metal tight in his hand, Loki smiles and looks back, thinking he might catch a glimpse of Barton's face, struck with terror and shame at his failure.

He hears three beeps, and then the arrow explodes in his hand and his ears.  

He goes flying.

Loki is next aware of slamming through the tower.  His whole body aches, but he can still move.  He begins to stand, but the hulking monster that is Bruce Banner is waiting for him, roaring and slamming his fists like the mindless beast he should be.

What happens next, when Loki's whirlwind of anger, confusion, frustration and rage leads him to provoke the Hulk, is good evidence that he is, in fact, very aware even when in this form.  

Loki rests in the cater his body created, eyes wide, mouth hanging open, body on fire.  He thinks he hears the Hulk walking away, and maybe he says something in a gravely voice addressed to him.

Loki doesn't know. He's too busy trying to breathe to listen carefully.

**  
 _Jane Foster_

When the video first went out, it was very close to chaos.  People around Jane gasped and screamed at each other.  Someone ran from the room, yelling a single word over and over again.  Jane would later learn that the word translated roughly to 'doom' and it was certainly fitting.

The next time the video comes back, a hush falls over the crowd.  Jane hasn't moved an inch since the Stand By screen appeared.  Even with the noise surrounding her, nothing could phase the swirl of emotions as her mind tries to process what just happened, and what it could mean.

The last time she saw Thor, he looked terrible.  He was fighting three monsters at once and she has no idea if he won because the stupid camera just had to pan away.  The very last thing she saw was Loki's back as he flew away.  Where was he going?

She'd never know.

Or so she thought.

The video feed comes back, and so does the newscaster.  He sounds shaken, his words coming out in a tumble, but there's a joy that hadn't been there before.  Whatever he's saying, it's very, very good news, because all of a sudden, a great cheer comes over the place.  Jane jumps, the raucous noise getting to her worse than their fear had.  People yell and applaud and whoop and kiss all around her.  She's pretty sure she spots Jacobine and Hilda hugging in the corner.  When had they gotten here?

Jane keeps her eyes on the screen.  She sees hundreds of those monster lifeless on the ground.  Debris and damaged buildings are everywhere,  Lord only knows how many bodies are buried underneath.  Jane sees the team of heroes standing in the center.  Ironman is held up by the man with the arrows and the person in black, now revealed to Jane as a redheaded woman.  The green giant backs them up, and the red white and blue man stands right next to-

Thor.

Thor is a little banged up, his armor a mess and covered in dirt.  Mjolnir rests in his strong grip, his face is deathly serious.  Jane has never seen him like this before, and it kind of shocks her.  She knows it really shouldn't.  They only knew each other for three days, and he must be a least a thousand years old.  That's a lot of time she wasn't around for. He must have more sides to him than she can even begin to fathom.

The observatory celebrates their victors, The Avengers, as they are supposedly called, well into the night.  Jane is dragged into it by Hilda, but she'd really rather go back to her room and turn in early.  The near destruction of her planet is kind of exhausting to process.  A hour or eight of sleep is what she needs right now.

She manages to get away at around 8:30, slipping out while Hilda is distracted and tipsy and dancing on the table to some europop song Jane's never heard of.  She makes it to her room in record time, not wanting anyone to stop her along the way.  She slams and bolts the door behind her.  She takes a deep, soothing breath and walks to the bed, kicking off her shoes and letting them fly messily into the corner.  Next, she removes her socks, and finally her pants.  

Jane didn't make her bed this morning, so the covers are still rumpled and the pillow has a tiny stain on one side.  Jane hates to admit that she drools sometimes in her sleep.  Why couldn't she just snore like everyone else?  Darcy caught on not long after Thor left and Erik disappeared to work on whatever secret project SHIELD had gotten him into.  She decided that Jane must be having some really hot sex dreams about Thor and asked if she should stop waking her up every morning just in case she interrupted something.  Jane never let her do the laundry again and they never spoke about it again either.

Jane remembers now that she never confirmed, nor denied, Darcy's suspicion.  She groans and brings a hand to her head.  It's time for a new train of thought.

She thinks about the future, about what was going to happen now that the danger has passed.  

Would Thor come back to her?

Most likely, he'd bring Loki back to Asgard first, so his brother could face justice.  What happened after that, Jane hadn't a clue.  Obviously, that Bifrost of his was functioning, since he'd managed to get to Earth at all.

Right?

And obviously, he's been thinking about her this past year just as much as she's been thinking about him.

Right?

And obviously he knows how much has been left unsaid and how much they need to talk about before they can move on to any sort of relationship.

Right?

And obviously, if Jane keep over thinking it like this, she'll never get any sleep.  At least there's one thing she's certain of.

Jane slides into bed, pulling the covers to her chin and turning to the wall.  The bed is comfy as ever, but sleep is a long way off.  She finds herself going over various scenarios of how her reunion with Thor might play out.  She pictures them meeting back at her lab in Puente Antiguo.  She's all alone, going over some charts or something, and then he's there, standing over her with that charmingly disarming smile of his.  And then with tears in her eyes, Jane leaps into his powerful arms and they share a kiss that takes her breath away.

Or maybe she'll still be here, and he'll be the one to come and pick her up.  He'll fly in, decked out in that sexy battle gear of his, and then after the romantic reunion and kiss, he'll fly her away across the ocean, and she'll see the stars she loves so much up close.

Or maybe she would go to him, meet him in New York, where he'd introduce her to the rest of the Avengers.  That would be even better, because she'd get to meet Tony Stark and hopefully strike up a conversation with him about her research.  She has no idea if the man has any interest in astrophysics, but surely a genius like him could at least keep up with her, a normal person with many sleepless nights of study under her belt.

Her imagination runs wild, coming up with new ideas and new variations to old ones and making her feel truly happy for the first time in ages.  She becomes more and more excited, more ready than ever to see Thor's face again.  The only thing deterring her is the fact that most of her fantasies are more akin to silly romantic comedies than real life.  The only one that resembles reality at all is far shorter than the rest, and ends not with kisses, but with tears.  

Jane steers clear of that one for the rest of the night, as the hours tick by and her eyes grow heavy.

**  
 _Loki Laufeyson_

Asgard is everything Loki remembers it to be.  Large, golden, beautiful, and entirely unwelcoming.

It's taken him a long time, and so much pain in the realm of Thanos, to realize that he's never truly felt at home in Asgard.  Even in the days of his innocence, when he still believed himself to be a true son of Odin, something always told him that he was different.  The nobles and courtiers who looked upon Thor with love and admiration held nothing for Loki but caution and repressed scorn.  

Because he was so different from the rest of his family.  He was dark were they were light, a sorcerer where his brother was a warrior.  He had few friends, Sif and the Warriors Three would never have bothered with him if Thor hadn't made them.  Here they were now, anxiously awaiting Thor's return.

Fandral is at the front, beaming like the idiot he is.  He takes Thor by the hand, his voice booming as he welcomes Thor back.  He takes a moment send a hateful glare Loki's way.  The two of them disliked each other from the moment they first met.  Fandral must be giddy over Loki's change in alliance.  He was right all along that the Silvertongue was a monster.

Volstagg is next.  He ignores Loki, but then what else is new, and focuses solely on wrapping Thor in a massive bear hug.  Thor laughs with him, slapping the large man on the back before moving to Hogun.  The final member of the Warriors Three merely smiles at him.  He's always been the most reserved of the bunch.  He turns a severe look to Loki, but that's the only greeting he gives.  

Sif is the last to approach.  She is glowing and admittedly quite beautiful in her joy at seeing Thor again.  She must have been worried sick when he left to fight for Midgard.  The stupid girl has always let her blind love get in her way.  Out of all of them, Loki hates Sif most of all.  She perhaps knows Thor just as well as Loki does.  She's seen him as a fine warrior, and as a noble Prince, and as a rude drunk, and as a moronic dullard.

And after all that, she's still hopelessly in love with him.  Pathetic.

She greets Thor with a slight bow of her head.  Thor responds by laughing anew and ruffling her hair.  He's been doing that since they were children, back when her hair was still the color of the sun.  Loki smirks beneath his mask, remembering how he'd taken care of _that_ so many years ago.  Her reaction had been worth the pain of her retaliation.  

When the introductions are over, they and several foot soldiers escort the two Princes to the palace.  Loki walks up the remnants of the Rainbow Bridge, silenced by his gag, and arms and powers bound by the chains on his wrists.  They provide ample room for movement, but are tight and uncomfortable, sucking away his magic little by little.  Loki doesn't bother trying more than curling his fingers together.

He maintains a cool, expressionless face, but on the inside, a powerful, violent fury is raging against his shackles.

He hates them.

He hates all of them.

He was supposed to be King.  

He was supposed to show them all.

Instead, he's returning to that place of never ending misery, chained up like a common criminal.  

Thor leads him into the castle grounds, past the entrance and into the main hall.  The foot soldiers disperse, leaving only Sif and the Warriors Three flanking them.  One by one, they vanish as well.  Sif takes the longest to leave, speaking under her breath how happy she is to have Thor home.  Then she's gone and Thor has had no reaction to her words.  Loki doubts he even heard them.

To his surprise, Thor leads him not to the AllFather, but down a darkened hallway that few ever go near.  The dungeons.

"Father will see you tomorrow," Thor says, heavily.  "He is not ready to give out your punishment.  You will be brought before him at dawn."

 _'He is_ not _my father,'_ Loki thinks.

Thor is silent the whole rest of the way.

He marches Loki passed the guards at the door, pushing it open with one hand.  The dingy smell hits Loki like a slap in the face.  He fights not to gag.  The mask won't let him anyway, and the last thing he's going to do now is show such weakness in front of Thor.

He is brought to the cell on the very end, the biggest one available.  The door opens, Loki is gently pushed inside, and it closes behind him.  There are no keys to these cages, the AllFather's magic locks them automatically and unbreakably as soon as the doors close on their occupant.  Even Loki at full power would have trouble getting them open.

He knows.  A long time ago, Thor dared him to try, and he was trapped in there all night, until Frigga came and got him out.  

Loki pushes the memory away, it just makes him angrier.  Thor hesitates to leave, staring at Loki, trying to meet his false brother's eyes one more time. Maybe he's still hoping like a fool that he can talk some sense into him.  Loki stares at the tiny window high above him and doesn't look away until Thor's footsteps fade, and the door closes with a resounding click.

Other than that window, Loki has no light, and when night comes, he's in pitch black.  With no magic to light his way, Loki can do nothing.  He wants to scream, he wants to curse, he wants to destroy this cage, he wants to kill them all, he wants to do anything besides sit in this filthy cell a broken man.  

He can do nothing but dry his eyes, and wish they would stop leaking already.

He closes them to block out the tears, and keeps them closed.  He keeps them closed so long, that he begins to feel tired.

Or maybe he was already tired and just didn't realize it.

For the second time in two days, Loki Laufeyson feels the overcoming urge to sleep.

And he gives into it.

**  
Jane Foster sleeps peacefully.

Loki Laufeyson sleeps fitfully.

In their two separate realms, so very far apart, they share nothing but that ignorant slumber.

And all the worlds around them, near and far, go on turning.

And then, they don't.


	3. Days 2-3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing off the last author's note, I've made the date May 4th so to make things easier. It's a significant date for us Avengers fans, so I figured, why not?

_Day 2: Jane Foster_

_**‘Come on Eileen, oh I swear  
At this moment, you mean everything!’** _

Jane wakes up.

There’s no other way to describe it, no fancy words or metaphor. She was asleep, and now she’s awake.

__**‘With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess  
Verge on dirty  
Ah come on Eileen.’**

She’s awake and listening to a song that‘s oddly familiar. Someone at that radio station must be a big Dexy‘s fan. Growling softly, Jane pushes herself up on her elbows, forcing herself to look in the direction of her window where the light shines through. Her clock/radio reads 9 am on the dot. She reaches out, going straight to SNOOZE, and Kevin Rowland’s incomprehensible vocals cut off.

After the roller coaster ride that was yesterday evening, she could use the extra twenty minutes of sleep. Dr. Ahlberg would just have to wait, assuming she's not too busy breaking up the party (because Hilda would keep it going well into the morning hours) to come for her.

She hears those same sharp knocks on the door and knows that she’s wrong.

“Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there’s work to be done.”

Jane rubs the sleep from her eyes.

“I’ll be right there,” she answers.

“Do not make us wait for you.”

She pushes away the covers, listening for Dr. Ahlberg to continue. All she hears is footsteps walking away. She waits a few more seconds and hears nothing. Just the far off voices of other scientists and interns, laughing at jokes she’ll never understand. She creeps on bare feet to the door, pressing her ear against it, and hears no other sign of a human being.

For the second day in a row, Dr. Ahlberg hasn’t waited for her.

She backs away slowly, walking into the center of the room with her brow furrowed. She is careful not to go too far, so she doesn’t run into anything.

“I guess she’s done being my guide,” she decides to herself. “Well, I do know my way around pretty well by now.”

Jane smiles to herself and turns to the far corner, the one she kicked her shoes off into the night before.

It’s empty.

Jane blinks, looking to the opposite corner in case she was mistaken. It is equally bare, and so she spins all the way around trying to find them. When she does, they are in their usual spot next to the bathroom door, neat and upright. Jane stares blankly at them.

“That’s weird… I could’ve sworn I left them right there.”

She looks again at the far corner, staring intently. Then someone pounds on the door and Jane nearly jumps out of her socks.

“Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don’t hurry, you’ll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I’m going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!”

Jane’s eyes have since gone to the door. She stares holes into it as her mind replays yesterday morning, and all that was said and done. She wraps her hands around herself, defensive, as if she expects Jacobine to rip the door open and pounce on her like a snarling animal.

“Jane?” Jacobine knocks again. “Are you even up yet?”

Jane opens her mouth, and for a moment, struggles to speak.

“Yeah, I’m up. I’ll be right there.”

She snatches her pants off the floor and goes to her dresser for a clean shirt. The blue and white tee she wore yesterday is neatly folded on top, looking freshly laundered and unworn. Jane looks down to find the old red shirt she’d worn to bed the night after last and  _definitely_  discarded for the blue and white.

She  _definitely_  fell asleep in the blue and white shirt last night.

Jane fists the red shirt, pulling at it and meeting resistance. She lets go, curling her fingers around air, and slowly looking back at the open drawer.

She shakes her head.

“Someone spiked my drink at the party last night,” she thinks aloud. “That‘s got to be it.”

She hovers fingers over her shirt, and glances at her precariously placed shoes, and then at the door that Jacobine is still standing behind. As if on cue, she knocks again.

“Jane, hurry up!”

“I’m coming,” Jane shouts back. Without another thought, she pulled the shirt over her head and grabbed the blue and white. After sliding her pants and shoes on, she grabs her things and heads for the door.

Maybe once she gets out and sees the aftermath of everyone’s little victory party, and has a hungover and irritable Hilda to distract her, she’ll start to feel better.

**  
 _Loki Laufeyson_

Loki wakes up slowly, because he isn’t aware of his surroundings until he opens his eyes.

He feels cold, hard rock at his back, damp in places that seep into his skin and give him a chill. His whole body feels hard when the memories of yesterday hit him at full force. His stomach fills with impotent rage, his fists clenching, an easier task now then last night. Strangely, the dull aching of his head from that monster’s beating has vanished as well. He’d thought it would be days before that pain finally faded.

Not that it matters.

He feels gravel under his feet, and curls his toes in his boots, which then slid fully down to the ground. There is a light shining in his face, a bright one that resembles the sun, and for a moment, he’s fooled into believing that it is. It’s coming from the wrong direction, though. The window in his cell is on the right, not the left.

Loki opens his eyes.

He sees the curved tunnel of his old hideout. There isn’t a trace of the dirty cell walls anywhere. In the corner of his eye are the scientists and soldiers he’d taken control of, loading the tesseract into it’s case.

The tesseract.

“Sir?”

Loki whirls around. The nameless man who awoke him yesterday is standing there, completely blank faced before his master’s wide eyed, incredulous stare.

“We’re ready to go.”

Loki loses control of his jaw, which drops comically. Anyone else, Thor, Sif, those idiotic Warriors Three, would have laughed heartily at the sight of the famed Trickster, sent into shock with such seeming ease. This man is none of them, and he’s not capable of anything more than breathing without Loki’s word. His expression is unchanged in the face of Loki’s lost composure. He merely turns and goes about his work when Loki moves past him without a word.

His steps are difficult, because his legs feel like jelly. They’ll cave in at any moment if he’s not careful. He stands before his slaves and the key to his rule, that which was ruthlessly stolen from him just the day before.

Or so he thought.

His heart is beating so fast, he thinks he can see it beneath the many layers of his armor. He brings a hand to his chest, brushing his surcoat mindlessly. He looks this way and that. There are more people wandering around and the truck with the tesseract in the corner. There isn’t a single trace of bars or chains or other prisoners to be seen.

He is not on Asgard.

He is on Midgard.

It is again the morning of his invasion.

Everything that happened yesterday, his confrontation with Tony Stark, his failure to control him thanks to whatever that blasted thing on his chest was, his battle with Thor, his refusal of Thor’s pleas, his flight on the glider, the attack by Barton, his yelling at the Hulk, the monster’s brutal retaliation, his capture, his chains, his return to Asgard, his night alone in that dank little cell as he awaited punishment from the very man who’d kept him captive for years…

It hadn’t happened.

It. Hadn’t. Happened.

If it had, then Loki must be dreaming. Perhaps he hadn’t really escaped his cell, and was still there this very moment. Perhaps he had gone completely insane overnight and was now hallucinating this second chance at victory.

He looks down at his hands, turning them over. Pale, white skin without the slightest hint of blue. He flexes his fingers, feels the magic there, pooling at his fingertips. Slowly, oh so slowly, he shakes his head.

And even slower is his smile.

“No…” he whispers. “This is no dream, this is  _real_. Somehow, this is real. All that I thought happened… it must have been a dream. There can be  _no other_  explanation, and that means-”

“Sir?”

The man from before is back, standing tall and ready for orders. Behind him is a small battalion, all armed with various types of weaponry and ready to go. Loki takes them all in, feeling a great joy rise in his stomach, the likes of which he never thought possible.

He’s about to take this world for his own.

For real this time.

His wild grin flashes here, there and everywhere. It’s unbecoming of a Prince and future King, but he’s just so happy and so relieved, that it overpowers him. It can’t be contained, the joy he feels. He’s one small step above dancing to a tune only he can hear. He takes a few breaths to calm himself before it can get that far. Even if his minions are under his complete control, he doesn’t feel like lowering himself to such a degree ever.

He walks to the truck and gets inside, just like he did in his dream. The only difference is that he’s driving to his victory. That petty little night terror is nothing compared to the glory he is about to gain. He pushes it from his mind with ease, focusing on the engine as it roars to life.

“Go,” he commands, and the driver obeys, driving towards his master’s destiny.

In the middle of the drive, Loki can’t help but note that Selvig is sitting in a similar position to his dream counterpart, and looks about as worn out too. How very interesting. Loki doesn’t dwell on the trivial thought and goes back to planning what he'll do once this city is under his control, and which one he’d go after next.

Were Loki really paying attention, he would’ve noticed that Selvig was sitting in the exact same position, with the exact same face, and playing with his hands the exact same way as in his dream.

**  
 _Jane Foster_

By the time lunch is over and Jane’s two hours of free time begins, she knows that something is very, very,  _very_ wrong.

She’s been through the early morning meetings after breakfast. She’s listened to Jacobine moaning at Hilda for taking the last of the coffee and cheekily drinking it in front of her. She’s sat in on presentations and meetings and given her opinions when prompted. She’s taken her turn at the catadioptric telescope and chatted with the engineers for a good ten minutes.

No one is saying anything about what happened yesterday.

It wouldn’t be so bad, except  _the entire freaking world almost ended yesterday._

And they’d watched it all on TV.

And they’d partied like animals when it was over.

At the very least, Hilda should be ridiculously hung over, taking up three seats to lay down on and using one of her black scarves as a blindfold. Instead, she’s perky as ever and chugging down a carton of milk like it’s more booze. Jane looks at Hilda’s breakfast of bacon and eggs with buttered toast on the side, and notes wearily that she had the exact same thing yesterday. She doesn’t really want to see what Jacobine’s eating.

She barely participates in a conversation that is also eerily familiar, and leaves immediately after swallowing her last bite of eggs. She deposits her tray on top of the stack near the trash bin and leaves out the open double doors. Hilda and Jacobine don’t notice.

Jane goes to her daily meeting with Dr. Ahlberg’s team. They are discussing a project based on her year long observations of one of Jupiter’s moons and it’s orbit around the planet. Jane listens carefully as she spends the first fifteen minutes going through every file on her laptop, looking for the notes she took at yesterday’s meeting. That she finds nothing is extremely distressing, because now she has no way to prove that they had this exact same discussion at the meeting yesterday.

Near the end of the meeting, after listening to the exact same people ask the exact same question and receive the exact same answers as yesterday, something inside Jane snaps.

“How about the news yesterday!” she shouts, bringing all attention onto herself. Dr. Ahlberg levees a cold stare in her direction, but Jane looks away and forces herself to sound casual. “That was something else… you know what I mean?”

She’s met with endless stares and almost loses confidence until someone in the very back suddenly laughs.

“Oh, I know  _exactly_  what you mean,” the man says. “Raising the gas prices a full 10 krones? I don’t know what they think they’re doing. Makes me glad I don’t drive.”

A few people start muttering, either to agree with the man or to wonder what some American consultant cares about that. Jane sinks into her seat while Dr. Ahlberg brings everyone back to order. She makes sure to give Jane an extra thin lipped look as she’s leaving for the day.

Jane sits in the empty lab room with Hilda and Jacobine chattering around her. She was almost afraid to go with them today. If it wouldn’t have looked strange on her part to skip out on them and then go back to her room and sleep the rest of the day away, she just might have.

“I‘d never had a sip of alcohol before that night. It was probably the craziest thing I ever did, but I lost the bet and I’m not one to go back on my word.”

“Hmmm… and all you had were a couple of beers. Pfft- that is not wild, my friend.”

She’s starting to regret not doing it.

“Well, we can’t all be as daring as you.”

“Yes, and you never will be, much as I hate to break it to you.”

Jane whirls around. She’s been trying as hard as she can not to listen to them, but all this is really starting to scare her now.

Hilda eyes her. “Something up, Jane?”

“Ah- no,” Jane says after a beat. “I was just wondering… have either of you ever had a really bad case of déjà vu?”

She doesn’t know where that came from. She’d been going to ask about her and Jacobine’s side project that they were keeping secret from everyone. Maybe prying them for answers would take her mind off of yesterday, which was starting to feel more and more dream-like as the day wore on. Her stupid, stupid mouth…

“Déjà vu?” Jacobine asks. “You mean that thing where you feel like something has happened before? Why do you ask?”

Hilda behind her shakes her head and crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t know about that, Jane, but you’ve been pretty out of it all day. Something you want to talk about?”

Of course Hilda  _would_  turn it around on her.

“No, I’m fine,” Jane says. “Just a little tired. I think I stayed up too late last night or something…”

“Because if you’re having any kind of problem, you can come to me,” Hilda says with genuine concern that almost has Jane fooled until a devilish smirk appears on her face. “Especially if it’s guy trouble, I’m an expert in that.”

“It’s not guy trouble,” Jane says firmly. “Not at all…”

She turns away from the two of them. The last thing she needs is to talk to them or anyone else right now. She glances at the clock, noting the time. In another couple of minutes, Ahlberg will be heading for her office to take her lunch, and then maybe Jane can sneak back to her room and-

The door slams open.

Hilda shouts at the new arrival.

Jane’s stomach drops.

“You- you three- you have to come- to the TV room- you have to see this!”

She’s slower this time, but Jane gets to the TV room quicker than before, because now she knows the way. She walks in, finds the exact same spot right in front of the TV open and waiting for her. Jane sits down and stares at the chaotic scene of Manhattan under attack as the newscaster speaks a language she still doesn’t know.

She’s finding it increasingly harder to breathe.

**  
 _Loki Laufeyson_

“What have I to fear?”

“The Avengers, ‘Earth‘s Mightiest Heroes,’ that sort of thing,” answers Tony Stark. He’s holding a drink and speaking smugly, like he’s the one in the position of power and Loki is the worthless pawn about to be crushed. Loki doesn’t like that, and not only because Stark said something similar in his dream.

In fact, he said those words exactly.

“Let’s do a headcount,” he says a short time after. “Your brother, the Demi-God-”

That’s just like in the dream too.

“-a couple of master assassins-”

Strange…

“-a super soldier and living legend who kind of lives up to the legend-”

He’d never known himself to be a seer…

“-a man with  _breathtaking_  anger management issues-”

But that wouldn’t be the answer anyway because he dreamed of defeat, and there’s no way in Hel that he’s going to lose. No, Stark is just predictable, nothing more.

He even comes to stand before him when his romantic spiel is coming to an end.

“There is no throne, there is no version of this where you come out on top. Because if we can’t protect the earth, you can be damn sure we’ll avenge it.”

Loki bristles. His hand that holds the spear itches, his starts to raise it, then eyes the blue circle on Stark’s chest. If he remembers correctly from his dream…

_‘Stop it! It was a dream!’_

“When will they have time for that, when they’re so busy fighting you?”

Stark looks terrified for just a moment, right up until Loki presses the spear to his chest… and the spell fails.

Loki doesn’t try again like in his dream, but Stark still makes a quip about ‘performance issues.’

Loki makes sure to throw him harder out the window, but his metal suit still shoots after him and knocks into Loki on it’s way. He still gets blasted a moment later by Stark in that same metal suit.

It’s just coincidence.

**  
Loki is the future ruler of Midgard. He is the unjustly dethroned true King of Asgard. He is a false son of Odin who has rejected his upbringing in favor of making his own name. He is fierce and unforgiving to his enemies and merciful to those who accept him as their king. He is a great many things and has been known by a great many names.

He is not one to get nervous. He is not one to panic. He is most certainly not a fool in a state of delusion, reliving the same battle again to the letter. He has seen Romanov and the one called Captain America battling Chitauri on the ground. Thor and Banner fight side by side. Loki spots Romanov taking over one of the fliers later on. He lets her go, exactly as he did in his dream.

Everything that is happening now is exactly how it happened in his dream.

Loki forgets where he’s going as he realizes this and almost misses Barton on the rooftop, shooting down fliers and the Chitauri climbing at him. Loki tries to ignore him up there, right where he was in the dream.

Because it doesn’t matter what any of them are doing or how they are doing it. What happened last night was in his mind and his mind alone. It was some tiny shred of his mind that lacked surety in himself and his army that caused him to imagine an elaborate scenario of how his defeat could play out. Just because things were unfolding like in his dream so far didn’t mean a thing. It was nothing more than his mind playing tricks on him.

Barton sees him approaching and readies an arrow. Last night was just a dream.

Barton aims.

It was a dream.

Barton fires.

It was a dream.

Loki catches it.

It was a dream.

The arrow beeps.

It was a-

Loki flies into the building.  Pain explodes in his head and he loses his vision for a split second. He forces himself up, fighting the pain that is now back and in the exact same spot as it had been when he feel asleep in that jail cell last night.

Last night  _in his dream._

He turns to leave. On the off chance the Hulk appears like in his dream, he doesn’t want to be anywhere nearby when it does.

The floor seems to burst apart beneath him. He is again forced off his feet and goes spinning. The Hulk roars and towers over him.

Again.

Loki snaps.

“ENOUGH! You- you are all beneath me! You listen to me, I AM A GOD! I will not be-”

Loki slams on the concrete floor.

Again and again and again and again and again.

Again.

The beast drops him, stomping away like he’s been throwing nothing but a sack of potatos around. Loki can hear him this time.

“Puny God.”

He finds it increasingly harder to breathe.

**  
 _Jane Foster_

Jane sits on her bed and stares at the floor. She stares so hard, the little cracks start to blur and change shape. She can still hear the sounds of people screaming and celebrating in her ears, can still see Hilda dancing on the table, can still picture the battle weary Thor on the TV.

Again.

She doesn’t know whether to go to bed or stay awake. Her eyes are heavy, but her heart and mind are racing. She lays down anyway because the walls are thin around here, and someone is bound to hear if she starts pacing. She closes her eyes, fingering the hem of her blue and white t-shirt, and clears her mind. She opens them and looks out at the starry sky, reciting constellations and star names and the moons of each planets and anything else she can think of that would keep her dual sets of memory at bay for just a little longer.

She soon starts to feel tired, just enough at ease to finally sleep. It lingers in the back of her mind that she’s going to have to deal with this in the morning no matter what.

She’s anxious about what tomorrow morning will bring.

**  
 _Day 3: Loki Laufeyson_

Loki fell asleep in a cell last night. He memorized every inch of it beforehand. He made sure it was the same one he’d been left in in his dream and then he’d committed it to memory and forced his fitful mind to relax. It would’ve been much easier if his sleeping spells could work on himself, but he learned a long time ago that performing any kind of spell designed to render one unconscious on yourself rarely worked and was in general incredibly stupid. The most he could do with his power so drained was a simple calming spell, and it worked like a charm.

As soon he feels himself wake up, Loki opens his eyes.

He knows right away that he’s not in the cell.

“Sir?”

He slowly turns to the man, sees bright blue eyes unnerve him for a whole different reason than they’re supposed to.

“We’re ready to go.”

Loki looks over his shoulder at the tesseract being loaded into it’s case. Selvig oversees and enters the truck when they’re done. Loki is going to be the last one in it looks like. He moves as if in a daze. He _is_  in a daze. He says not a word and thinks of nothing but the lack of pain in his body and the shining, untouched city of Manhattan before him.

He is silent for the entire drive.

**  
 _Jane Foster_

_**‘Come on Eileen, oh I swear  
At this moment, you mean everything!** _

__**‘With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess  
Verge on dirty  
Ah come on Eileen.’**

Three knocks on the door.

“Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there’s work to be done.”

“…”

“Do not make us wait for you.”

“…”

Dr. Ahlberg walks away. Jane lays in bed unmoving and listens to the song until it ends and a new one comes on. She doesn’t know what it is, and she doesn’t care. She lifts her shirt to her eyes.

Red.

Louder knocks on the door.

“Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don’t hurry, you’ll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I’m going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!”

Jane lifts off the bed, zombie-like. She bypasses the bathroom, the dresser, the pants on the floor, and goes straight for the door. She opens it three inches, just calm enough to care about protecting her modesty. Jacobine doesn’t seem to notice.

“Hey, good morning, Sleepyhead!” She teasingly flicks a stray piece of uncombed hair that’s in front of Jane’s face.

“Jacobine, what day is it?”

Jacobine blinks. “It’s Saturday.”

Jane’s heart starts to sink.

“What’s the date?”

“May 4th.”

Jane’s legs start to give and she holds on tighter to the door. It opens a little more and she’s almost exposed to a few male scientists walking by. Jacobine quickly steps in front of her.

“Hey uh, I don’t mean to sound insensitive or anything, but we need to go,” she says. “You should brush your hair… and put some pants on.”

“I will,” Jane says softly, tapping her fingernails on the hardwood door. “But first… do you remember that big attack on New York City that was in the news yesterday?”

Jacobine’s smile vanishes completely. For a second, Jane thinks she’s going to get the answer she desperately wants and needs. Jacobine’s brow knit together, her mouth opens up-

And she laughs.

“What? An attack on New York? Jane, what are you talking about?”

She says all this amid pearls of laughter that make Jane want to sink into the floor and disappear.

“So you don’t remember…”

“That’s a pretty big thing,” Jacobine, who is calming down, says. “You must have had some dream last night.”

Jane shakes her head and leans her shoulder on the doorframe. Jacobine moves to cover her again.

“No, no, no dream,” Jane says. “It can’t be…”

“Alright, enough of this,” Jacobine says, gently pushing Jane back into her room. “Get dressed and let’s go. No more talk of cities being attacked. That kind of stuff is going to make you look like a conspiracy freak or something.”

Jane shuts the door in Jacobine’s face.

She goes through the motions of brushing her hair and teeth, but she doesn’t change shirts.

**  
 _Loki Laufeyson_

“Let’s do a headcount: your brother, the Demi-God, a couple of master assassins, a super soldier and living legend who… kind of…”

Tony Stark trails off. He ceases walking as Loki stares at the top of his head. Loki can just see the smaller man’s confused look. He flexes his fingers and turns his head, as if he expects to see whatever has Loki’s attention. Then, it an act of complete audacity that Loki would never have believed if he weren’t occupied with other things, Stark waves a hand inches away from Loki’s face.

“Hey, you in there?”

If he’s trying to get Loki’s attention, he’s succeeded, and he’s about to regret it. Loki’s eyes snap to his, and Stark backs away fearfully. Loki stalks forward, a predator baring down on helpless prey.

“I don’t know what this is,” Loki growls. “A game or a dream…”

He practically slams the end of the spear into Stark’s chest. Nothing happens. Loki sucks in a breath and squeeze the staff so hard it almost breaks in two. He grabs Tony by the neck and holds him just as tightly. Stark gasps for air, his face already turning blue.

“I don’t care… this ends  _today_. You and your entire pathetic race  _will_  bow before me!”

He hurls him out the window. He doesn’t know when Stark found the time to make it happen, but his suit flies after him. Though Loki isn’t in exactly the same place as he was the last two times, he’s close enough that he gets hit again.

In fact, it hits him harder.

**  
 _Jane Foster_

Jane sits in the TV Room, the scene that’s growing in familiarity playing out both on the screen and in the horrified audience. The only major difference Jane can find is the moment when she feels a cold hand on her shoulder. She turns to face a white faced Jacobine.

“Jane…” her friend whispers. “Are you psychic or something?”

Jane cannot answer.

**  
 _Loki Laufeyson_

When he catches the arrow, it’s pure instinct. He doesn’t feel like trying to gloat, he’d rather just get rid of this insipid thing before-

It explodes.

Loki hits the building.

The Hulk is there five seconds later. He roars and starts to charge.

Loki forces himself upright.

“Oh no,” he shouts at the beast. “You listen to me-”

It grabs him again and there comes the pain.

**  
Jane Foster sits in a room full of celebrating scientists and interns, the only one not involved in the merrymaking. She stares at the screen, where the reporter proclaims a victory for planet earth and her new heroes, the Avengers.

Loki Laufeyson turns to face six pairs of enraged and exhausted eyes trained on him. He has a comment in mind, but this time, he doesn’t speak it aloud. He doesn’t say a word as they chain him up. Then they gag him, and it no longer matters.

Jane Foster and Loki Laufeyson.

At this moment in time, they have two things in common.

One is a single thought running through their minds, that won‘t be leaving them for quite a while.

_‘What the hell is happening?’_


	4. Jane: Days 4- 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Messing with time a little more.

_Day 4_

Jane Foster, first and foremost, is a scientist.

It's all she's ever known how to be.

Scientists are practical people by nature. Their purpose is to explore the world and explain it's many wonders in a logical way. Jane is the kind who goes out to prove something thought to be fantastic is, in fact, rational. She wants to prove the existence of other worlds. She's spent her, admittedly short, career risking all chances at credibility to do this, and no matter what anyone else thinks, she is not an irrational person. She does not try to explain seemingly impossible phenomena as magic or the supernatural or all those things she used to believe didn't exist (she didn't, really!).

When they are faced with something strange or fantastic, a good Scientist does not lose his or her head. They put their thinking caps on, so to speak. They ask themselves a few simple questions.

What is happening?

Why is it happening?

How can I prove this is why it's happening?

So on the fourth morning in a row Jane wakes up to-

_**'Come on Eileen, oh I swear** _

_**At this moment, you mean everything!'** _

_**'With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess** _

_**Verge on dirty** _

_**Ah come on Eileen.'** _

And-

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

And-

"Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

The first thing she does after vaulting out of bed is grab her notebook and pens, throw them onto the bed, and run to the door, which she does not open.

"I'm feeling a little drowsy this morning, Jacobine. Go on without me, okay?"

Outside the door, Jacobine tsks. Jane bristles slightly, she's always had this pet peeve about people tsking her.

"You've been working too hard, I knew it."

Jane doesn't like her tone.  She'd much prefer Hilda who at least patronizes her intentionally. Not wanting the conversation to go any further, Jane politely shoos Jacobine off and doesn't answer when her friend offers to save her a breakfast scone. Those things never taste good anyway.

Jane rushes back to the bed and snatches the barely used notebook. She manages to rip a page full of important notes in half in her haste and curses loudly. She throws the book back down and runs fingers through her untamed hair.

"At least it'll be back to normal tomorrow," she tells herself reassuringly… and then immediately feels like smacking her head against the wall and screaming her lungs out.

_'Stop. Stop. Deep breath, Jane, deep breath. You can figure this out.'_

She takes several, in and out, in and out. It only helps a little bit. She's still feeling jittery like she just guzzled an entire pot of coffee in ten seconds. She has to wait longer still for her hand to stop shaking, even after her rapid heartbeat has calmed enough that she can no longer hear it in her ears.

She picks up the pen and writes.

_Same events have repeated without change for three days…_

She pauses there, looking over that last word and speaking it aloud in her head several times. She determines that it isn't the right word. Because if this is really happening and this is the real world she's in right now, 'day' isn't going to work. Technically, 0 days have passed since the first time she woke up this way. It's just an amount of time that is, for her, the equivalent of three days.

Jane crosses out 'days' and writes a new word next to it.

_Same events have repeated without change for three cycles._

Yes, that's it. Cycles is a good word.

See how well one can work when they stay calm and focused?

_Every cycle begins upon waking up at 6:00 am (CET), with Come On, Eileen on the radio; first chorus. Followed by Dr. Ahlberg coming to wake me up. Jacobine arrives and makes threatening comment about Hilda's family heirloom._

Just to be safe, Jane writes their exact words in the margins.

_Every cycle ends with attack on Manhattan by Loki, Thor's brother. Thor fights him with team known as 'The Avengers' and defeats him after a lengthy battle. Other members of the Avengers include Ironman (Tony Stark), Captain America (Name currently unknown; further research required), large green humanoid (further research required but strikes me as familiar), unknown man and woman (further research required)._

_Loki and Avengers currently a non-issue, but will look into at some point in the interest of covering all bases._

She goes on to detail every other event of the last three cycles as best as she can remember.

_6:30 to 7:15- breakfast with Jacobine and Hilda, who make idle chit-chat. Minimal participation._

_7:30 to 8:15- First meeting of the day. General outline of next week's work and responsibilities._

_8:30 to 11:00- Observatory time. Spent alone. No major events occur._

_11:30 to 2:00- Second meeting with Dr. Ahlberg and co. regarding recent projects. Attempt was made in cycle two to establish connection with cycle one. Attempt was a failure. Potential conclusion: no one else is aware of the repeating day. Further research necessary to substantiate theory._

_2:05 to 3:00- Late lunch with company. Dr. Ahlberg leaves at this time. Last time she is seen in each cycle._

_3:15 to 4:45- Free time with Jacobine and Hilda. Usually goes until 5:45, but is cut short today at 4:45._

_4:45- Intern rushes in and leads us to TV room, were the battle occurs Live. Time in Manhattan is around 10:45 in the morning (EST)._

_5:55- TV goes out._

_6:20- TV comes back to reveal victory by the Avengers._

_6:21 to 9:30- Celebration._

_At 9:35, I exit and return to my room. I am in bed by 10:00 and asleep shortly after._

_Cycle begins anew at 6:05. Unsure if this is the exact time of restart, or if it happens earlier. Will endeavor to stay awake and see, if not now, then soon._

_All events in one cycle erased at the start of the next. Presumably, this will continue from today, cycle number four, into tomorrow, cycle number five._

Today and tomorrow don't really work for her either, but those aren't as easy to replace as 'day' is, and so Jane lets it be.

_It strikes me that these notes will likely disappear as well at the start of next cycle. Will use as an experiment before proceeding further._

Jane looks over everything she's written, paying special attention to her play by play of the day's events. She reads through carefully, knowing there is likely a lot missing. Only three cycles isn't enough to burn every word and action she hears and sees into her brain. This leads to the rather chilling thought of just how many it would take. Jane feels her chest constrict again and shakes her head, willing the question away for the time being.

She rips out the notebook page and leaves it on her bed. Then, Jane gets up and grabs her pants. She opens her drawer and takes out the blue and white shirt. She dresses in silence and brushes her hair. Within five minutes, she's gotten herself together and is out the door.

**  
She goes through cycle four the way she did cycle one, right down to the letter. In the morning, she sits with Jacobine and Hilda for breakfast. She doesn't remember what she said to them in cycle one, so she just answers all their questions like nothing is wrong and initiates no conversation herself.

She gets through the first meeting similarly. She listens to Dr. Ahlberg's authoritative voice handing out tasks and responsibilities.

"You will continue you consultation with me in the Jupiter experiments, Dr. Foster. Meet me in the labs promptly at 11:30."

That's what she's been told three times before. Jane nods her head and waits for the good doctor to look away before slipping out a pen and writing in the notebook on her lap.

_Still no significant changes._

She spends her observatory time everywhere but in front of the telescope. She's in the corner by the door, which is sound proofed on both sides and can't tell her a thing. She tries to remember everything that occurred during her time overseeing the Jupiter project, but she's only getting flashes. Things like pictures of the orbiting moons and one gangly young intern who doesn't speak good English and who Jane is pretty sure has a crush on Hilda, if the way he's always bringing up her name and sweating bullets means anything. Jane pities the poor boy.

She doesn't ask herself why she doesn't remember much. The answer is that she's never cared much for the project, not from her first day assigned to it. It's a simple astronomy job a first year undergraduate could do. Jane is an Astrophysicist months away from her Ph.D. If it wasn't her life right now, she'd find it hilarious.

_When solution to current predicament is found, I must remember to talk to Dr. Ahlberg about getting clearance for the advanced projects. Surely I've proved myself capable by now._

She is suddenly aware of an actual benefit to this time loop: if it continues, Jane could use it to gain more insight into Dr. Ahlberg's work. She is aware of a project involving black holes that relates closely to her own research into Einstein-Rosen Bridges. It's the very project that those SHIELD agents had lured her in with, like a mouse pulled to a trap by the irresistable smell of cheese. Much as Jane hates to make such a comparison, it is sadly true. She wonders if they knew Dr. Ahlberg would throw her in the proverbial kiddy pool the second she was on her property.

Maybe after a couple of cycles with the Doctor's notes, Jane could show just what she could do when given the chance.

Jane pauses in her writing when she realizes that she's doing it again. She's treating this time loop like a tool or, God forbid, something beneficial to her, instead of the problem it really is. First priority right now is getting as much data on the situation itself so a solution could be found. She could get through to Dr. Ahlberg on her own time, through her own ability, not by breaking into her office and stealing sensitive information on something that could potentially be a scientific breakthrough. It didn't matter in the slightest how much Jane wanted to be a part of it.

She just really, really, really wanted to be a part of it.

Jane blows out a puff of air and rips out the last page. She crumples it into a ball and tosses it aside. She spends the next hour in a state of perpetual boredom, with her ear pressed as far into the metal door as possible in a vain attempt to hear something on the other end.

The second meeting is so boring, she doesn't even write it down. Now that she's admitted to herself that she doesn't care, she can hardly bring herself to look interested in what's being said to her.

_'Yeah, you've told me about the fascinating orbital patterns four times now. It was boring then and it's near torture now. Do you ever shut up?'_

She smiles and nods her head to what's being said, and gives what little insight she can. She can tell by the way her hairs stand up on end that Dr. Ahlberg is staring at her from behind, and she is not impressed.

"We'll be working a little harder next time, Ms. Foster?" she says when time is up and Jane is heading off to take lunch. "You'll never get anywhere without any work ethic."

 _'Try building all of your equipment from scratch and almost getting blown up in the process five times, then complain to me about my work ethic,'_ Jane thinks.

"I know, Doctor. I'm doing my best," Jane says.

She treats lunch the way she did breakfast, making little conversation herself and trying to commit everything said to her to memory.  When her free time comes, Jane feels a little tense. She focuses on her notebook, which she's shooed Jacobine away from just a few minutes ago with talk of all the work she has to catch up on and how dreary it is. Hilda doesn't care in the slightest, thank God for that.

"I'd never had a sip of alcohol before that night," says Jacobine. "It was probably the craziest thing I ever did, but I lost the bet and I'm not one to go back on my word."

"Hmmm…" Hilda hums and rolls her shoulders. "And all you had were a couple of beers. Pfft- that is not wild, my friend."

"Well, we can't all be as daring as you."

"Yes, and you never will be, much as I hate to break it to you."

Jane writes it all down as fast as she can. This is the part she remembers the most, because now is the time she's usually pulled into the discussion. She hopes what she said earlier to Jacobine about needing to get work done will keep ii from going that way today. She knows it's important to keep things in line with cycle one as much as possible, but she's really not in the mood for any kind of talk right now. Especially not guy talk.

She's not ready to think about anyone else being oblivious to what's going on, least of all Thor.

She's not ready to face the very real possibility that she's alone.

She's so lost in thought, she doesn't realize she's being stared at.

"Boy, that must be some hard work. She looks awful," Jacobine whispers to Hilda, who shrugs.

"They should really give her tomorrow off."

That's more or less the end of all serious discussion until 4:45, when the door bursts open.  Right on schedule.

"You- you three- you have to come- to the TV room- you have to see this!"

The next thing Jane knows, she in front of the TV again. She dubs the spot right in front of it 'hers' for now and for future reference. It has the best view of the screen as far as she knows, and it keeps things in line with previous cycles. It doesn't change the fact that she doesn't want to sit there and really doesn't want to watch this battle one more time. She's never been keen on action films the way her cousins and their friends always were. What little time she spent in front of the TV was reserved for educational specials on the universe, and the occasional romance film for her and her mom.

Watching this battle now, for the fourth time in a row… she's not feeling it anymore. Everyone around her is in shock and awe like it's their first time, and she'd be lying through her teeth if she says she wasn't right there with them three cycles ago. She supposes it's just desensitization kicking in. It's come a little quickly, but that's being a Scientist for you. You learn to separate yourself from certain things. This battle for the world is just another part of the conundrum now. It's an action film she's going to watch over and over again until she knows it by heart.

Honestly? It's a little boring too. They can barely see any of the fighting with such a limited scope.

The signal is lost again. Everyone starts screaming, and Jane puts her head down, covering her face with her long hair. To anyone else, she must look terrified out of her mind, too afraid to even look up at the NO SIGNAL sign on the screen. She just doesn't want them to see her bored face.

She leaves shortly after the power comes back, and the Avengers have made a miraculous victory and the world is safe again, how wonderful. She practically runs out of the room, not giving Hilda any chances to find her and drag her into the celebrations that are only just starting, but will soon explode to level bordering on hysteria. Three times now, she's been sucked in. Not this time.

Jane locks herself in her room and rips out every page she's written and spreads them out over her unmade bed. She leaves enough space for herself to sit down and shuffle through them, getting them into their proper order. Her handwriting is not the best, especially when writing fast, but it's legible to her own eye. She can just hear her old elementary school teachers balking.

When she has them in order, she gives them one final read-through. She notes all important events from waking up to the battle in New York.

 _'Maybe that's the key,'_ she thinks to herself. She grabs the papers detailing the event from the line up. _'This battle. That it coincides with this repeating day can't be a coincidence. Can it?'_

She leans back to get a little more comfortable. It strikes her now how very tired she is. She hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the night before cycle one. Is it possible that the lack of sleep carries over to each new cycle regardless of when she turns in at the end of an old one?

When that thought strikes her, Jane finds herself sliding down onto the mattress, her feet pushing papers aside and off the bed while she's in some kind of daze and can't do anything about it. After a moment, she sighs and brushes the rest of the papers off. She really is far more tired than she realized. This whole repeating day scenario is going to be exhausting, she can feel it.

So she'll just get back to work tomorrow, or when cycle five starts. Whichever.

 _'All your notes will be gone by then,'_ says the voice of reason in her head.

 _'Then it doesn't matter when I go to sleep,'_ she answers. _'I need more data if I'm going to figure anything out anyway, and I can't get that until a new cycle starts. If I need to write it all down again, then so be it.'_

Jane finds comfort and resolve in this reasoning, and slowly drifts off to sleep.

**  
 _Day 5_

_**'Come on Eileen, oh I swear** _

_**At this moment, you mean everything!'** _

_**'With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess** _

_**Verge on dirty** _

_**Ah come on Eileen.'** _

Jane opens her eyes.

_knock knock_

Jane looks at the door.

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

Jane mouths along with Dr. Ahlberg, then hears her walk away.

Seconds pass.

_KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK_

"Come on, Jane, get moving!" Jacobine shouts.

She looks at the desk.

"If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast."

Her notebook is there.

"And I swear-"

Completely intact.

"-Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

Brand new and unused.

"OH MY GOD!"

Jane shoots out of bed. Outside, she hears Jacobine yelp, followed by a thump.  She regains herself and bangs on the door.

"Jane, are you okay? What was that!"

Jane throws is open. Jacobine's eyes widen and she moves to cover Jane's exposed lower half.

"What the hell are you doing?" she demands.

Jane doesn't answer, she just stares. She stares at Jacobine until her eyes feel ready to fall out of her head. Jacobine doesn't notice at first, but when she does, she shrinks under Jane's penetrating, nearly crazed gaze.

"Uh… if you're okay, I'm just going to go on ahead," she takes a small step back. "Get some pants on and meet us there. I'll uh… I'll save you some juice or something…"

She all but runs down the hall and out of sight. No one else is around, so Jane doesn't move for a long time. When she does back into her room and slowly closes the door, she immediately falls against it face first and slides to her knees, forehead scraped by little pieces of metal that are too weak to do more than scratch.

"Oh my god…" she says again, softer, more fearful.  Tears are welling up in her eyes. "This is happening. This is really happening. This is real…"

She moves to sit and wraps her arms around herself to quell the shaking.

"Why? I don't understand… Why me? Why is this happening to me?"

She looks up at the ceiling. It's cold, gray concrete hides the sky from her, and Jane doesn't even know what she's saying. She thinks it would be nice if there was someone listening to her pleas, but Jane is a scientist, first and foremost.

She gets no answer.

**  
She walks around in a daze all day. From breakfast, to both meetings, to those once coveted two hours of free time. She doesn't listen to anything this time. The scientist in her seems to have taken a long vacation and taken her brain with it, because she can barely string two words together.  When one of her co-workers attempts to get her attention by tapping her on the shoulder, she jumps ten feet in the air with a horrible scream. Everyone, even Dr. Ahlberg stares at her, as she struggles to speak and eventually just runs out of the room when nothing will come to her.

When she's finally alone with Jacobine and Hilda, she sits as far away from them as possible. She doesn't care to listen and see if they're having the same conversation again, or if they're just staring at her wondering if she's completely lost it. The general silence in the room would imply the latter. Too bad Jane can't bring herself to care.

She stares at the wall aimlessly. Her mind seems to move a mile a minute, and yet she's not thinking about anything. The clock out the corner of her eye reads thirty minutes after four. Ten more minutes before the intern arrives. She thinks she might skip it this time. It's not like she'll never have another chance to see Manhattan get pummeled.

Nope, she's got all the time in the world!

Jane slumps over, the side of her head hitting the wall hard. Pain shoots through her temples and goes ignored, as does the thumping of shoes on floor until Hilda is standing over her and in her line of sight.

"Jane, what's with you today?"

Jane looks up at Hilda's blush covered cheeks and purple lined eyes, and looks right back down. Hilda's hand on her shoulder squeezes hard.

"Oh no, do not ignore me, my friend," she says as she forces Jane to look up. Jane glances away from her, and Hilda shakes her. It doesn't work.

"I'm fine, Hilda. Leave me alone," Jane says in a droning, robotic tone. Well, at least her mouth is working again.

Too bad she still can't say anything convincing.

"You've been acting weird all day! All jumpy and despondent, are you getting sick?"

Hilda places a hand on Jane's forehead and cheeks. Jane wishes she'd stop, but can't bring herself to even push her away.

"I'm fine," she says again. "Everything's just wonderful. It would be better if I could have some time alone, thank you."

Hilda huffs and looks up at Jacobine, who shakes her head.

"She was like this this morning too. I don't know what's gotten into her."

And that's about enough for today.

Jane gets to her feet, a little wobbly at first from sitting so long with her legs crossed, and brushes by Hilda. She doesn't care for the look on her face or the way Jacobine looks ready to approach her. She's only got a few minutes left before the intern shows up.

"I'm going to turn in early," is all she says as she walks out the door.

She's gone ten steps, and then Jacobine and Hilda are following her down the hall. Jane groans openly. Why can't they just let her be for once?

"Jane, hang on!" Jacobine calls out. "Don't you have to meet Dr. Ahlberg later on for your review?"

"It's been cancelled," Jane shouts back. "Something urgent came up. I'm going to bed."

"You know, if you're sick, we do have an infirmary," Hilda says. Her heels strike the floor in perfect time, so loud that they seem to bite into Jane's ears and make her wince. She'd love to just rip those things off and toss them into the incinerator. There's an idea she should run by Jacobine tomorrow. "There's also a psychologist on staff. Good to have around when you're so isolated like this. Cabin fever and all that?"

Jane barks a laugh and walks faster. Cabin fever. Wouldn't that be nice?

She breaks into a sprint. She's never been a good runner, always coming close to last in high school gym class, but she puts her all into it this time. She feels like she's flying as she turns the corner and disappears from the sight of all others forever. At least until tomorrow.

She wonders later on if Hilda and Jacobine were at the party this time.

**  
 _Day 6_

_**'Come on Eileen, oh I swear** _

_**At this moment, you mean everything!'** _

_**'With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess** _

_**Verge on dirty** _

_**Ah come on Eileen.'** _

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

"Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

"Maybe I will talk to that psychologist…" Jane thinks aloud.

If nothing else, it'll be a change of pace.

**  
The psychologist's name is Dr. Louis Averman. Like Jane, he's not a native Norwegian. He hails from England, as his thick accent implies. He's a man in his sixties; medium height with a wrinkling face framed by pristinely cut and brushed snow white hair. His eyes are light blue and full of warmth, as is the smile he wears that never seems to fade. On his desk is an array of photos: himself holding and kissing the cheek of an equally gray and wizened woman; two young men, who share both his eyes and his smile, holding newly caught fish on a line; a little girl in a pink party dress and plastic crown, curtseying at the camera while displaying a mouth full of holes and baby teeth; one of the young men in the second photo, leaning over a sweaty, yet beaming woman in a hospital bed who holds a newborn baby in her arms.

They look like a happy and loving little family. She thinks if she looks closer, she'll find a group photo of them all sitting around a table on Christmas or something, looking at the camera and smiling big. It must be nice.

Dr. Averman is looking over a medical text with his back to her. Jane hears the rustling of pages, and an occasional hum from the doctor when he presumably finds something interesting, but not helpful to Jane's predicament. Jane sits on a very nice, upholstered couch with her feet firmly on the ground. There are the requisite diplomas and commemorations all over the walls that all bare the doctor's name. They look very impressive. That Ph.D. on the south wall in particular…

Other than that, Jane can't say she's enjoying herself. The bland yellow of the walls and rough green carpet don't make for a welcoming atmosphere. Unless it's just her. She's only now remembering how much she hates doctor's offices, especially psychologists'. That last time she went to one of those was when she was nine. That doctor was Dr. Averman's polar opposite. He was tall and lanky with slicked back black hair and beady brown eyes. His eyebrow had an odd curve to them that made it look like he was always scowling. Whenever he smiled with his eyes like that, Jane felt uncomfortable, like he was about to attack at any moment. He'd been forceful with her treatment too. He prescribed to the belief that you would never get through to a patient using kid gloves. You had to stop being nice and make them face the problem head on.

"Look into my eyes, Jane," he would say. "Don't look away. You look away and we'll have to do it over. Look at my eyes and repeat after me-"

"My mother is dead and it isn't my fault."

"Sorry, what was that?"

Jane's head shoots up. It's the first time she's aware that she's lowered it. She feels like she might have dozed off for a second there. It wouldn't be a stretch, she suffers the same lack of sleep every morning now. What really shocks her is that she actually said _that_ out loud. Where had that even come from anyway? This office was messing with her head, drudging up old memories she wanted buried until the end of time. Why on earth did she come here again?

"It's nothing," Jane says. "I spaced out for a second there, that's all."

She smiles politely, but doesn't think he's buying it. Would he study her this way, like she's a new test he's just been handed, if he did?

Dr. Averman closes the book and sets it down, then takes a seat in the dark red leather chair that is the only nice looking piece of furniture in the room.

"So you feel you're having… some sort of memory problem, Ms. Foster?"

Jane leans back into the cushions, lacing her fingers together over crossed legs.

"It's a little more complicated than that…" she trails off.

"I noted in your initial explanation of why you're here that you had a keen interest in the phenomena of Déjà vu. Have you been experiencing it as of late? Perhaps excessively?"

Jane bites back a laugh and stops short of shaking her head. She thinks for a moment that 'excessive' is a good word for it, but then comes to realize that this is so much more than that. So much that there is no word to describe it. Impossible would have been good, except it's actually happening to her, so now even that's not going to cut it.

Why the hell did she come here?

"I've been… Lately, I've just- wait a second."

Dr. Averman nods. "Take your time."

Jane recognizes that tone. The therapist of her child did the same thing on her first few visits, speaking softly and asking her questions about herself, giving her ample time to answer and never doing more than just nodding along. That went on until he felt they were well acquainted and comfortable enough with talking to each other to get on to the real therapy. She'd been too nervous to tell him he was only half-right. Here and now, Jane says a silent prayer that Dr. Averman is nothing like that, then starts trying to figure out where to go from here.

She takes a deep breath.

"I've been kind of stressed out, sorry."

"Oh, that's alright," Dr, Averman says. "Believe me, when you work here long enough, you're bound to get a little cabin fever. No need to fell bad."

"Thank you," Jane says robotically. "What I've been trying to say is… I- I've been having this dream."

His eyebrows shoot up, and his smile remains. It's not a nice combination, it makes Jane feel like he's looking down on her.  Any second now he's going to pat her on the head and give her a lollipop.

"A dream?"

She nods, hopefully with clear conviction. "It's a recurring dream. I've had it the last few nights… and in my dream, I'm reliving the same events over and over again."

Dr. Averman nods, his face unchanged as he makes a cage with his fingers.

"Alright, can you clarify for me? Do you mean you are having the same dream repeatedly, or that there is repetition in the dream itself?"

"That one. The second one, I mean," she amends. "Like… I start off having breakfast in the mess hall, and then I'm working with Dr. Ahlberg, and then I'm in my room again getting ready for bed, and then from there it all just… starts again."

"So you're dreaming about some kind of time loop," Dr. Averman says. "Does anything significant happen? Perhaps a sudden breakthrough in your research or something tragic? Or is it all just mundane events, things you experience every day?"

Jane tries not to visibly fidget. She doesn't like the way he's looking at her, like he's reading her mind and knows how much she's leaving out. She keeps seeing the TV screen in her mind, showing the destruction of an entire city and the monsters responsible for it. In another four hours, that's going to be reality, only to be wiped away at the start of the next cycle. Thinking about it like it's a dream is surreal. If only it were true.

For the third time today, she wonders why on earth she came here.

"It's mostly just what I told you," she said softly. She read once that breaking eye contact is a sure sign that someone is lying, so Jane keeps her eyes straight on his and hopes there's nothing else her body is involuntarily doing to give her away.

Dr. Averman nods. He does that a lot, she's noticed. The doctor from her youth did that too. Is this some kind of therapist thing?

"And how many times have you had this dream?"

Jane goes to shrug, but it turns into a full roll of her shoulders. It eases her tension a bit, but she'd still like to get out of here as fast as possible before her whole body seizes up.

"I don't know… a couple of times over the past few days. Two times- three maybe… I haven't really counted."

"I see," Dr. Averman doesn't nod this time. Jane is relieved. Then he stands and starts pacing, and Jane doesn't know how to take that. "Tell me, Ms. Foster, how long have you been here with us on the island?"

"About a week, maybe more," Jane says.

"And you first started having this dream…"

He waits for her to answer, but Jane takes longer than necessary as what he's implying becomes clear to her. Now all she can think is that she should have come up with a better cover story.

 _'Like what?'_ says the snide little voice in her head. Jane inwardly sighs.

"A few days after arriving," she says, then attempts to feign perplexity. "You're thinking there's a correlation?"

"Well, I don't want to say anything for sure just yet," he says. "I have read several books specializing on dream interpretation. I wouldn't call myself an expert in that particular field, but dreams of repetition are thought to reflect your daily routine. Perhaps there is something you've been doing that you shouldn't be doing, or something you _haven't_ been doing that you _should_ be doing."

Jane's eyes flick to the ground and she inhales deeply through her nose, letting the breath out through her mouth.

"You don't have to tell me anything if it makes you uncomfortable," he goes on to say as he comes to a stop behind his chair. He puts his hands on the upper frame. "But I'd like you to think about everything you've been doing since you arrived here, anything that leaves you unsatisfied or frustrated. Think about what you can do to improve the situation, if not completely rectify it. Think about things you may want to say or do that you may be afraid to. I can't guarantee the dreams will stop, but you may find you have a better grasp of things. More control, so to speak."

Jane pauses to think that through. On the surface, it's not at all helpful to her, but maybe if she looks a little deeper, she'll find something. Or maybe she's just desperately grasping at straws.  She might have a clearer head if she leaves soon. She stands up and reaches out to shake his hand.

"I see… well, thank you, Doctor. You've given me a lot to think about."

"Not at all," he says, smiling. "And my door is open whenever you wish to talk again. I'm free all day tomorrow and the next day."

Jane almost smiles back at him, but only manages a twitching of the right side of her face.

"I'll keep that in mind."

**  
 _Day 7_

_**'Come on Eileen, oh I swear** _

_**At this moment, you mean everything!'** _

_**'With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess** _

_**Verge on dirty** _

_**Ah come on Eileen.'** _

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

"Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

Jane sluggishly pulls herself out of bed. She drags her feet to the door, which Jacobine is pounding on again because Jane hasn't answered her. Each time Jacobine's fist connects, it sends reverberations through Jane's head and makes her feel more off balance. She steadies herself against the wall and then the door.

"Go on without me, Jacobine," Jane says, the side of her face pressed against the chillingly cold metal. "Let Dr. Ahlberg know I'm taking the day off to rest."

Jacobine goes quiet for a few seconds.

"Jane, are you allowed to do that?"

"Just tell her I have a bad headache and can't leave my room. I really do have one. It's a wonder that I could even get out of bed and talk to you."

"Migraine, huh?" Jacobine says sympathetically. "My mother used to get those. Don't worry, Jane, I'll cover for you. You just worry about getting better."

"Thank you, Jacobine," Jane says. It's the first genuine thing she's said.

She waits to hear Jacobine walk away, and once her footfalls can no longer be heard, Jane walks back into her room and flops down on the bed. She's asleep in seconds.

When she wakes up three hours later, there is no sign that anyone has been around. There are only three keys to her room. Jane has two of them, and the third is kept in the reception area and only to be used in the event of an emergency. Jane's room is undisturbed, from the shoes in the corner to the notebook on the desk. She slides out of bed with more ease than before and significantly less fatigue. She's still not exactly sunshine and rainbows, but it's a start.

It would be great if she could just stop thinking about what Dr. Averman said to her.

"Perhaps there is something you've been doing that you shouldn't be doing, or something you haven't been doing that you should be doing."

Jane snorts sardonically.

"Because wouldn't it be nice if _that's_ all it took."

It would be even nicer if she could've told Dr. Averman the truth and not have him thinking she was out of her mind. Then Jane might start to think that she was too. Sure, it all would be erased the next day whether he believed it or not, but there was not a single pro to it that she could think of. If someone, especially a complete stranger, came up to her and told her they were living in a repeating day and that they were the only one aware of it, she'd never believe it. She'd call the cops to cart this obvious mental case away before she believed it. Why should anyone act any different?

Why should anyone believe her?

Jane rolls over onto her side and curls up into a ball. A few strands of hair land on her face and tickle her cheek. She tries twice to blow them aside and gives up when she fails. She's only just woken up and she's not even tired, but she can't seem to get herself up. It's only just occurring to her how alone she is, and not just because she's shut herself up in her room for the day.

She is alone. She is more alone than any human being should have a right to be. She was never very social to begin with, with few close friends and a noticeable lack of family. In high school, she was the girl who sat in the library during study periods and actually read, who stayed home from Prom to finish a homework assignment. The difference was that even then, she still had someone she could talk to; someone to confide in.

She had an Erik.

She had a Darcy.

Hell, she might have even had a Thor.

But, of course, she wasn't stuck in a day that never ends either.

For the rest of the day, Jane lays on her bed in her 10 by 8 foot room with cement walls and an overhead light bulb as her only salvation from total darkness, and she is alone.

She is completely, utterly, hopelessly alone.

**  
 _Day 8_

_**'Come on Eileen, oh I swear** _

_**At this moment, you mean everything!'** _

_**'With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess** _

_**Verge on dirty** _

_**Ah come on Eileen.'** _

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

"Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

Jane tells Jacobine it's a stomachache today.

**  
 _Day 9_

_**'Come on Eileen, oh I swear** _

_**At this moment, you mean everything!'** _

_**'With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess** _

_**Verge on dirty** _

_**Ah come on Eileen.'** _

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

"Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

Jane goes with the headache excuse again. Maybe tomorrow, she'll go with a fever.

She spends the day flipping through the pages of random texts, counting the bricks on the wall and watching the light bulb flicker from bright to really bright. She finally gets tired enough to try sleeping at around five. No doubt everyone's already in the TV room watching the big invasion. She hasn't seen it since the fourth cycle, but if she remembers correctly, now is about the time that redheaded woman takes over one of the fliers after tag teaming with Captain America. They'll be victorious by the time the clock strikes six. Maybe tomorrow she'll get out long enough to watch it again. But then again, maybe not.

Jane slides under the covers and closes her eyes. Despite her general lack of activity all day long- or perhaps because of it- she's asleep in minutes, completely dead to the world.

She doesn't hear it when there's a knock on her door at 6:15. She doesn't hear Jacobine's shaking voice call out to her.

"Jane… Jane, are you awake?" she says. She sounds so terrified, like she's about to cry. She ceases knocking now and starts jimmying the door knob. "Jane, you need to get up. Something awful has happened. On the news, they-"

She chokes on a sob, and then another, graver voice joins hers.

"Let her sleep, Jacobine," Hilda says. "She'll find out in the morning. At least let her have a few more hours of peace. It's more than any of us are going to get for a long time…"

Jacobine dissolves into soft cries, and Hilda's whispered words of comfort, words she may not even believe herself, are muffled beyond recognition by the door and her own wavering voice. She may be on the verge of tears herself. Somewhere in the distance, perhaps a few doors down, there is more crying and sounds of panic. It goes on for the rest of the night, long after Hilda and Jacobine have shuffled off.

Jane sleeps on.

**  
 _Day 10_

_**'Come on Eileen, oh I swear** _

_**At this moment, you mean everything!'** _

_**'With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess** _

_**Verge on dirty** _

_**Ah come on Eileen.'** _

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

"Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

Jane opens her eyes on Jacobine's final word. She stares at the ceiling, the cracks in which she's spent the past three cycles memorizing. She feels different this morning, better even. She sits up in bed and listens to Jacobine bang on the door and call out to her for over five minutes. She's never waited this long before. By the sixth minute, Jacobine gives up and walks away. Jane thinks she hears her talking to herself about heavy sleepers and 'that's what happens when you overexert yourself!'

Jane laughs out loud, and then puts a hand over her mouth in shock.

She just laughed.

Jane lifts her head, looks at the clock overhead and the work desk underneath it. That infamous notebook sits in the center, pristine and awaiting use. Her head fills with things she could write down, things all about her predicament that will be erased at the next starting point.  For once, she doesn't care about that.

What was she doing anyway, laying around in here like an invalid?

What good was she doing herself?

What happened to her zeal from cycle four?

Jane rises, grabs up her pants and hastily dresses herself. She throws off her shirt, pulling a new one that is neither blue nor white out of her drawer and putting it on. She's got all her things and is in the hall without a moment's hesitation.

It's like a breath of fresh air. She's been cooped up in that room far too long.

She goes about her day as she did in cycle four. Luckily, she remembers the first four cycles well enough to go about it with minimal changes. All major events happen in sequence, from her breakfast with the girls, right down to the intern rushing in at 4:45.

"You- you three- you have to come- to the TV room- you have to see this!"

Jane sits herself in her usual spot, legs crossed one over the other and watches with perfect composure. She doesn't bother to hide her lack of fear today. She can sense a few incredulous stares on her, but mostly everyone's too engrossed with what's on the screen. Thor appears on schedule, fierce in battle. He looks good. Jane smiles a little.

She sees Loki shortly after, and like all the others times, only for a split second.

It's odd, though.

The first four times this happened, she could've sworn he was frowning, his face wrought with cold determination.

Here in this cycle… he looked like he was _laughing._

Jane thinks about it, then shakes her head. She'd seen his face through a clouded lens for all of one second. She must have been seeing things. Either that, or he's always been like that and she's just never noticed. He _is_ supposed to be insane.

She files it away to be examined in the next cycle, not expecting to find much of anything and likely to forget later on when something more important came to her attention.

She leaves right as the party starts.

**  
 _Day 11_

_**'Come on Eileen, oh I swear** _

_**At this moment, you mean everything!'** _

_**'With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess** _

_**Verge on dirty** _

_**Ah come on Eileen.'** _

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

"Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

_'I think I'm going to stay up tonight,' Jane thinks. 'Find out exactly when each cycle starts and what would happen to me if I'm awake for it. Chances are, I'll revert back to the beginning like everything else, and wake up just like this. A couple of days of that should confirm it.'_

"Jane, are you there? Wake up!"

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

_'Maybe I'll talk to Dr. Ahlberg today too.'_

"Jane!"

"I'll be right there, Jacobine. Give me a second."

As per previous cycles, Jane doesn't get a free moment with Dr. Ahlberg until after 11:30. She finds her, as always, standing over the group of scientists heading the project, looking over their work with an analytical eye. Everything about Dr. Ahlberg is dark and neat, from her hair to her eyes to her black nail polish that never seemed to chip and is always perfectly applied. Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun, not a strand out of place. She's an older woman, not particularly attractive, but with a serenity to her that draws attention just as much, if not more, than traditional beauty. She wears a simple gold wedding band, but no one knows anything about her husband, or if he even exists. Jane has been in her office exactly one time, and there wasn't a single photograph on the walls or on her desk. There were no knick knacks or potted plants or anything to bring some life into the room. It was as cold and formal as the woman herself. If it weren't for that ring, the only piece of jewelry she's ever worn, nobody would believe she had a single person in her life.

Jane waits a few minutes to approach her, first pretending to concentrate on recent developments. When she's bored enough with that to move on, Dr. Ahlberg is further down, right by the door. In another five minutes, she'll be leaving and that'll be the last chance Jane has to speak with her until tomorrow. She excuses herself distractedly and heads in her direction.

"Dr. Ahlberg?"

The older woman doesn't look up right away. When she does, it's a quick glance before she goes back to looking at the screen.

"Ms. Foster, is there a problem?"

"No, Ma'am, I just…" Jane pauses as she draws a blank. She's not entirely sure what she should say or how to say it. She'd like to ask Dr. Ahlberg what she thinks, in a round about sort of way, but it's not coming to her. "Uh… I noticed before that you were talking about the black hole project earlier and I was wondering how-"

"Ms. Foster, we've discussed this," Dr. Ahlberg says dismissively as she peruses a clipboard someone just handed her. "Concern yourself with your own assignments and leave everything else alone. We are doing fine as is."

She puts down the clipboard, barks a few words in Norwegian, then takes her leave out the glass double doors. Jane stares after her until one of the nameless scientist she's meant to be assisting calls her over. She is silently fuming for the next hour and a half.

When 2:00 comes, Jane takes lunch in her room, and doesn't come out again. She makes sure to take extra and to stop at the lounge/library to grab a few books.

It's going to be a long night.

At 5:55 am, Jane sets down Pride and Prejudice, no longer capable of reading a word. Her eyes as so heavy, so close to drooping and sending her into a deep and well needed slumber, but she refuses to give in. Her night table and floor are covered with empty chip bags, salad containers, candy wrappers and water bottles. There are also copies of Memoirs of a Geisha and one of those James Patterson books that he wrote with someone else. Jane hasn't touched either of them, sticking with Jane Austen who is familiar to her like a childhood friend. She had been her mother's favorite author.

She takes careful track of the time and of her surroundings for signs of change. So far, nothing at all has happened. She heard a few voices down the hall hours ago, talking cheerfully on their way to bed and more than likely about the Avengers. It's now 5:58; still nothing. Her alarm clock is set to ring in approximately two minutes. What will happen in the second before that, she's about to find out.

There is an overly optimistic side of her that thinks she'll carry over to the next day. That staying up for the full twenty four hours is some kind of magic key that will break the spell and solve the problem. Or maybe the loop can only start again when she's asleep, and her being awake will prevent it, either permanently or temporarily. Both theories were asinine at best, but the second one at least provided a few more interesting questions. If that was the case, and wakefulness would keep the time loop at bay, what would happen if she fell asleep after six am? Say, at seven am? Or what if she managed to keep herself awake all throughout the next day and went to sleep that night? Would the loop be broken by then? Would she go back to the start of the next day? Would she go all the way back to the start of this day?

And if none of this was the case, as Jane suspected, and her being awake would have no affect at all, how would the switchover go? Would she feel anything, or would it be instantane

**  
 _Day 12_

_**'Come on Eileen, oh I swear** _

_**At this moment, you mean everything!'** _

_**'With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess** _

_**Verge on dirty** _

_**Ah come on Eileen.'** _

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

"Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

Jane bolts up in bed. She looks at the floor and night table. They are clean and empty.

And Jacobine is still pounding on the door.

"Jane, are you in there? Wake up!"

"I'm here," Jane says, rubbing her eyes. "I'm fine, I… just making the bed."

Well, at least that answers one question.

**  
Jane has a hard time keeping her eyes open during breakfast. Hilda and Jacobine don't notice, locked in the same insipid conversation they've been in twelve times now. Jane knows that pretty soon she'll have to start listening to them so she can have as accurate as possible a play by play of each cycle. She tunes in for a few seconds, it's something about Hilda's third college boyfriend, she tunes right out.

Of course, as always, she is soon caught.

"Hey there, Jane, don't fall asleep on us," Hilda said, waving a hand in her face. Jane finds it irksome right away. "I knew it, you're overworking yourself."

"How can I do that when I'm stuck with the kid's stuff?" Jane mutters bitterly.

"What? Didn't catch that."

"Nothing. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Had too much on my mind."

"Ergo, overworked," Hilda says matter of fact-ly, with her arms crossed over her chest and her smile cocky. She swings her legs out and leans back in her chair. "I know that feeling exactly. Working here is great and all, but this isolation can drive you nuts sometimes. Thank God I get to use my vacation time next week, otherwise I might actually try jumping the ferry."

Jane, who had been trying not to laugh at Hilda's 'next week' comment, perks up a little as Jacobine starts shaking her head in disapproval.

"Hilda, don't tell Jane about that, you might give her ideas."

"Are you kidding? Jane's a total goody-goody, it's easy to tell. I doubt she'd actually try sneaking out on the ferry."

"What are you talking about?" Jane tries to keep her bored and uninterested tone from before. It doesn't stop Jacobine from glaring at Hilda, who shrugs.

"Just a thought I had once," she says. "That if you really tried and didn't get caught, you could sneak right out of here and onto the mainland on the ferry that delivers food every week. Like today is a delivery day. The ferry'll come in at 8 in the morning and leave at 9:15. Plenty of time."

"No one is going to try that, Hilda," Jacobine says. "It's far too dangerous and it could mean your job if you get caught!"

"Who are you, my mom? It's just a fun thought anyway," Hilda says. "I'd never actually try it and I highly doubt anyone else would either. Right, Jane?"

"Yeah," Jane says, looking away from Hilda and at the clock on the wall that reads 6:45 am. "Right…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is more like Part one of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 will be a companion piece to this chapter and will explain what Loki is doing all this time. There are a few hints in this chapter. Any ideas? :D
> 
> Find out for yourself when Chapter 4 is posted either tomorrow or the next day.


	5. Loki: Days 4- 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Here's the long overdue counterpoint to Chapter Four, detailing exactly what Loki was doing while Jane was struggling to come to terms with what is happening to her. I hope you all enjoy!

_Day 4: Loki Laufeyson_

When Loki was a boy, he had trouble sleeping. He was a precocious child, always thinking about something, be it trivialities like what they would have for dinner that night, to bigger questions like how Asgard was founded and how to control the magic within him. While Thor’s dull brain was full of nothing but war and fighting, Loki saw so much more in the world to be explored. He had a great many questions, most of which he was never afraid to pose to the All-Father. In those days, before Thor was deemed worthy of mjolnir and became the only important Prince in the minds of all, Odin would meet his younger son’s queries with a smile and the pat on the head before leading him to the massive library where they could find the answer. More often than not, it was well past Loki’s bedtime when these moments occurred.

It continued into his early adulthood, though by now he would just venture to the library alone. He sought other sources of knowledge as well, learning everything he could, gaining proficiency in magic. He even learned how to fight and hunt thanks to Thor’s insistence that he accompany him and his friends to spar and camp out in the woods. His sleeping habits improved, but he never had what one would call a normal night’s sleep, and that was fine. After so many years, it was clear this was just how his body worked.

He wakes up for the fourth time in a row with that same archway in front of his face. The nameless soldier is right there waiting for him, eyes looking forward, but almost unseeing.

“Sir, we’re ready to go.”

That’s all he ever says. Loki waits a moment, dimly wondering if the man will say anything else. When he doesn’t, Loki pulls himself up and brushes by him. He sees Selvig and those same two men carrying the tesseract’s container to the truck. He is supposed to board it after them, but he finds himself rooted in place.

He flexes his fingers a couple of times, running them across his palm. His nails scratch at the sensitive skin gently, creating a tickle. He feels it, so he must really be standing here among the first of many loyal subjects.

For the fourth time.

Loki takes a deep breath through his nose.

He screams.

He doesn’t know why he’s screaming, he just really needs to right now. He keeps going, starting low and slowly becoming high pitched. The few who aren’t under his control stop what they’re doing and stare fearfully at him. Some even try to run, shouting about how he’d ‘cracked’ whatever that meant. Loki would deal with their insolence later, if all went well.

So far, nothing at all had gone well.

None of those whose minds he has taken react, as per the hypnosis. When Loki’s throat is dry and he can’t go on, Selvig approaches him, completely calm.

“Sir, we need to leave now if we’re going to be on time,” the ragged man says.

Loki looks at him, a disquieting smile creeping onto his face.

“Well then, we should be off!”

**  
He finds himself in Tony Stark’s pitiful excuse for a tower again. It’s a shame this mortal of such baseless arrogance will never see the glorious architecture of Asgard. He’d never have the full knowledge of his own inferiority that Loki would love to grant him. He listens to Stark go through the motions, offering a drink which Loki declines, referring to his staff by the odd title of ‘glowstick,’ and finally-

“Let’s do a headcount. Your brother, the demi-god; a super-soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend; a man with- I’m sorry, am I boring you?”

Loki, who’s been rolling his eyes and sarcastically mouthing along with Stark since he started, isn’t sure what the small man means. He slowly closes his mouth. Stark remains watching him at his bar, drink in hand. Loki observes him silently, takes in the entire area around him, committing it to memory. He has this feeling of dread in his stomach that he’s going to be seeing it again. He’s avoided thinking about that thus far by focusing only on what’s in front of him, only now there are wholly significant events replaying themselves before his very eyes, and no one else seems the least bit phased by it.

Probably because they don’t know.

That was one of the first things Loki figured out, that he is very much alone in this bizarre repetition. If there was someone else out there that knew, they were unimportant and he couldn’t be bothered to seek them out. Not yet.

Stark was on the move now, coming closer, having set down his drink and rubbing his hands together.

He opens his mouth like he’s about to speak, but the last thing Loki wants to hear right now is more of Stark’s grating voice. 

“It’s such a nice day, isn’t it?” he says.

That catches Stark off guard. His air of indifference drops, and Loki can see for a moment all that lays beneath. Stark is perplexed, unsure how to take that. More than that, he is scared out of his mind. He is facing down someone who could snap in half with no effort, and he knows it far too well. Loki finds some satisfaction in this, and he also, begrudgingly, must commend Stark for his bravery, no matter how foolish it is. He is a true warrior of Midgard, it’s such a shame he has to die.

“The skies are calm,” Loki continues, walking to the window. He feels Stark’s eye on him, and smiles. “But the air is not quiet. Is Midgard always so unpleasantly loud?”

“Mostly it’s just New York,” Stark says after a moments hesitation. “City that doesn’t sleep, they call it.”

“I see,” Loki says, looking out windows that will be shattered in just a few minutes. “How very interesting…”

He trails off intentionally, then whips around. He greedily buries the image of Stark jumping back half a step in his mind.

“I think I’ll be very well acquainted with your New York soon,” he says.

Stark misinterprets this exactly as Loki knew he would, and the sight of his dawning anger is a perfect distraction to the dropping of Loki’s heart as the truth of those words hits him hard.

“You still don’t get it, huh?” Stark says. “There isn’t going to be a soon for you. There is no version of this where you come out-”

And here, Stark is no longer capable of speech thanks in great part to the hand around his throat that chokes the life out of him. Loki briefly considers just killing him here, but finds he doesn’t have the energy, nor the desire. Unlike the last few times, he is not angry, not at Stark. This game of theirs is becoming little more than just that, and it’s just so unworthy of his time.

“I‘m sorry, but I don’t care to listen to your incessant babbling _again_ , Stark,” he says as he marches the gasping man to the window, blasts it open, and then casually tosses him over the edge. His sharp eyes catch a glimpse of a silvery bracelet on Stark’s wrist that he wasn’t wearing before.

Loki sidesteps the armor that shoots after it’s master. The wind ruffles his hair, but Loki is unperturbed. He walks out before Stark can fly back up, but thinks about what just happened and comes to the clearest conclusion. The bracelet is some kind of beacon that calls the armor to it. He must have kept it behind that bar of his and put it on when his hands were out of view. What a tepid attempt at deception. Did Stark really think he wouldn’t figure it out? The fact that it took him four times to notice is of no consequence.

**  
Loki tries to get the portal open as quickly as possible, so he can avoid the next little encounter with one of Midgard’s ‘Avengers.’ It is slow work no matter how much he pushes Selvig. By the time his army is on the move, Mjolnir is singing in the distance, and Thor is crashing down to stone floor. It gives a little under his feet.

“Loki!” he screams.

Loki looks down at him. This is the part where he taunts Thor with his poor timing, then engages him in quick battle while the fool tries to appeal to his ‘good nature.’ Then Loki will stab him in the side to buy some time so he can go on and head his invasion, while Thor goes to try and stop it.

To succeed in stopping it.

“LOKI!”

Loki clenches a fist and turns away. Thor is still calling after him, but Loki refuses to be baited. This is one event he will not repeat, not even if all the Nine Realms’ fates depended on it. Loki would not allow his so-called brother to goad him, to taunt him with false promises. Not again.

Loki waits for a Chitauri on a flier to approach. It slows so he can jump on, and then Loki is gone. The tower grows smaller behind him. He stops to look back once, and he sees Thor watching him go before he takes to the air. For one horrible moment, Loki thinks he may follow, but then Thor directs the hammer downwards, and he enters into the fray with Banner’s monstrous form. For the moment, Loki is free of him.

**  
Of course, he ends up back on the receiving end of Barton’s arrow. He thinks fast in those seconds about what he’s going to do. He could have the flier go faster and miss it, but Barton is quick enough and smart enough to have a second one going at once. Throwing it aside after he catches was more likely to work. There would be no need to gloat if Barton saw that.

While Loki is thinking this over, the arrow closes in. He catches it without thinking, and by the time he realizes what he’s done-

**BOOM**

Loki growls as he flies through the air. Next time, he will drop it.

He lands, as always, on the half destroyed floor of Stark’s tower. The bar is across from him. He wonders how much alcohol is stored back there and how much he would need to get drunk. He doesn’t have a good feeling about Midgardian ale. He fears it’ll be too weak for him, but that’s irrelevant right now, an issue for another day. Because right now, Banner has just arrived and he’s screaming and smashing his meaty fists to the ground and closing in.

Loki stumbles to his feet, needing the wall for leverage. The Hulk stops, breathing heavily and ready to attack at any second. Loki looks at him, completely blasé. Banner doesn’t appear to have expected that from the dim light of recognition in his puerile green eyes.

“Not today,” Loki says. He shakes his head and turns away, taking three steps.

The Hulk grabs his leg mid-fourth.

Loki doesn’t know why he thought that would work.

He’s smashed into the concrete again and again. Through the pain, he attempts to count each moment of impact, getting to five before his mind becomes too clouded. Unfortunately, his ears are still in perfect working order.

“Puny God.”

Loki doesn’t get up, even when his chest stops constricting. They find him there in the person shaped hole in the ground and he doesn’t acknowledge them for a second as they are pulling him out and tying him up.

They take him down the familiar path to the park, Central Park he believes, and he grabs the other end of the tesseract’s container on his own, with no prompting from Thor or anyone else. He can tell Thor is surprised by his cooperation. 

They arrive back in Asgard, and Thor trades the same greetings and Loki gets the same cold glares. He walks the same path to the palace, watches the same guards come to meet them and break off once they’re safely inside. Loki finds himself alone with Thor again, walking down the hall the leads to the dungeons instead of the All-Father.

"Father will see you tomorrow. He is not ready to give out your punishment. You will be brought before him at dawn."

Loki would laugh if he could.

He is marched to the cell he now has memorized. He avoids the spot he’d sat on the first time, where there’s some sharp pebbles that dig into his legs. He stands until Thor is gone, the door closing resolutely behind him. His eyes adjust to the darkness, and he takes a spot beneath the window, so he can stare at the rusted bars until his eyes inevitably start to droop.

**  
 _Day 5_

“Sir? We’re ready to go.”

Loki regards the man casually. His lip twitches into a half smile, which turns to a full blown grin when he gets up and walks away from his servants.

“Change of plans,” he says. “We won’t be doing it today. Tell everyone to store the tesseract away for safe keeping and then spend the day how they like.”

There is the tiniest bit of hesitation, and Loki can sense that the man is confused, so much that even the mind control can’t hold it back. He still gives an affirmative response and then goes to relay Loki’s orders to the rest. Loki hears a roar of questioning as he walks through the darkened tunnels and chuckles. He can only imagine the panic attack Fury will have when his little team of heroes arrives in Manhattan and finds nothing.

No Chitauri.

No destruction.

No tesseract.

No Loki.

He might even pop in on them at some point- invisible of course- just to watch the chaos. It might prove even more entertaining than the actual attack. No, it definitely would. Fury was a leader, his job required that he always be in control. More than that, he _needed_ control. The man was paranoid and easy to anger, even if it wasn‘t readily obvious. Loki had lived his life learning to read people, to turn their emotions against them. There was little these Midgardians could hide from him. Fury fully expected the attack today, and so he had made plans that hinged completely on it. He would be at a complete loss when he got the news. His meager control over the situation would be snatched from him and that one eye of his would likely pop right out from the stress.

And that was nothing compared to how the Avengers would react.

Loki finds a dry spot at the end of the tunnel and sinks to the ground. His hands rest on the cool concrete, which feels good on his skin and helps him relax. He suddenly sees, in his mind’s eye, an icy blue crawling up his arm. He removes his hands and places them in his lap.

He sits there for hours, eyes closed, body relaxed, mind wandering. He no longer hears anything from his slaves, either because he’s too far away or they’ve gone off like he told them to. He becomes aware of the silence that has reigned all this time. It strikes him as odd. Just yesterday Stark had called this putrid place the ‘City that doesn’t sleep.’ Loki had taken that to mean there was always noise wherever you went. Perhaps one could only go underground to escape it. That, or Stark was just exaggerating. Loki tries to focus his thoughts on other things, like what he thinks he’s accomplishing by not attacking the city this time when he‘ll be right back at the beginning in a few hours anyway.

Well, for one, he won’t get smashed into a floor today.

He feels his forehead, presses his fingers into the temples. The lack of pain is almost soothing. He should have stopped flying near Barton from the start. It might not help him win, but it would save him a terrible headache. At this point, he doesn’t know what he could do that would grant him the victory he deserves.

The situation is becoming more serious, and in turn, more difficult. After four times, it’s abundantly clear that running headfirst into the fray like he’s been doing will only end in constant failure. He goes over the sequence of events in his head, from the moment Stark touches down on the tower, to his final capture. Before now, he hasn’t made any significant changes.

So what if he did?

It was a thought that had crossed his mind before, but that he’d never bothered to think too hard on. Perhaps he’d been cocky before, believing his original plan- one that relied on the humans being too weak and pliable to create a sufficient defense against him- was fool proof and that the problem lay in the Chitauri forces or Selvig’s device or something else that wasn’t him. Loki is a man of great pride. He doesn’t like to admit it when he’s mistaken. Four repetitions of the same sorry defeat is what it takes; he needs to rethink his strategy.

He gets up, no longer relaxed enough to just sit idle. His long legs and quick, light steps have him at the opposite end of the tunnel in seconds. He immediately spins around and walks back the way he came. He repeats this numerous times as his thoughts branch off into endless streams. He can see everything, every little possibility for this day.

The first thing to do is take care of Banner. As long as the Hulk is out of the picture, his enemies’ chances at victory plummet. He may also have to just kill Stark as soon as he’s out of that metal suit of his. Their banter, while memorable, is mildly amusing at best. It would be no great loss. Romanov and Barton were nothing, just a pair of Midgardians with some special talents and little else. They could wait. Rogers, while decent at hand to hand combat, would be powerless without his little team. Really, it didn’t matter how he eliminated them or in what order. He has infinite time to figure out the best way. If he failed one day, he could just do it all over again on the next, and get it right.

Yes, perhaps he’s been looking at this in the wrong light. This curse can be made into a blessing. Now he has all the time he needs to make his plan a success. He could just see Thor’s face when he had learned his every move, his every word, his every thought, and used that knowledge against him.

It could work.

It _would_ work.

He wants to laugh, long and loud. His entire being is full to bursting with reinvigoration. It manifests itself in a delightful chill, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. It is not unlike the blistering, painful cold that lingered in his chest when he was lost in Thanos’s realm. The icy feeling continues to spread, and grow in intensity, until it is no longer comforting. It becomes the exact opposite. And Loki’s heart stops when the brightly lit tunnel burns away into total darkness. It has long since become clear that the cold he feels is not coming from him.

He sees endless night, blocked in places by a scattering of towering pillars and boulders. There is no order to this realm, it is in perpetual disarray. That alone makes Loki’s skin crawl. If he listens carefully, he can hear the cries of countless prisoners, as they await their slow, tortured deaths at the hands of a beast more heartless and cruel than anyone could imagine. Loki knows, he remembers well the pain. If he hadn’t been able to convince them of his usefulness (and the way he’d had to grovel like a lowly peasant made him want to smash something), he would have joined the damned souls in Hel ages ago. When he had been allowed to leave with his army, he had made a vow to himself, that he would never set foot in this wretched place again.

It’s now occurring to him that he may have miscalculated his earlier excitement. He had almost convinced himself that this repetition of time was a tool, something to be harnessed and used at his will. He thinks now how wrong he may have been. His defeats play over again in his mind, unchanging and inevitable.

What if this is Thanos’s punishment?

Loki closes his eyes and then opens them again. He expects to suddenly wake up from this nightmare, alone in his cell after his first and only defeat, knowing for just a few, brief moments that this repetition is and always has been the true dream, and that he will never escape for as long as he lives. Because Thanos will never let him go. Never.

Loki feels a long, sharp spike of a finger on his cheek. It runs over soft flesh, not hard enough to draw blood, but cold enough to make Loki’s temples throb.

“Asgardian,” the Other’s echoing, soulless voice speaks the misnomer in his ear like syrup. “The day has passed, and you have done nothing. Why does the army He so generously provided stand in wait, only to never be called upon?”

Loki forces air into his lungs. It freezes his insides and he doesn’t want to try it again. He tells himself not to panic, not to scream and not to whirl around and demand answers. Whether or not this is real, if it is a product of Thanos, he knows he will get nothing. The Other has closed in, standing close enough that Loki can feel breath on the nape of his neck. Unlike everything else in this place, it is decidedly warm.

The Other must be getting tired of Loki’s silence. He jabs his finger in hard. A trail of red blood is left behind. Loki is in a daze when he raises a hand to wipe it off.

“Speak to me, Asgardian,” the Other snaps. “Tell me what you are thinking.”

Loki’s hand slowly slips off his face and back to his side. His mind is spinning, he doesn’t know what idea is more plausible than the next or what string of words he should utter. It only raises his agitation. All of this, this lack of control, of power, it is tearing him apart at the seams.

“The day was… not right,” he finally says. There is a tremor in his voice that he couldn’t hide, try as he might. “I didn’t feel myself prepared.”

“Is that so?” the Other walks around Loki, so that they are facing each other. Loki doesn’t dare look away. “And what, exactly, do you think you need that we can not provide?”

Loki stares into blacked holes that are the Other’s eyes. He studies every inch of him, his face, his posture. He disguises his anxiety with an analytical eye. For a moment, he doesn’t care what the truth of his situation is. The last thing he will ever do is be cowed by these… creatures ever again.

“Midgard is not as modest a realm as this one. It is more complex, more is required for my domination of it.”

The Other’s claw cuts through the air, stopping a bare centimeter from Loki’s mouth. For once, his lack of a reaction is genuine and not a mask. His many centuries of battles, be they fought for the fate of Asgard, or Thor’s drunken bullheadedness causing yet another bar brawl, have been good for something. He knows when an opponent intends to kill, can see it in their eyes. He doubts the Other knows this, because he seems angrier now that he has failed again to intimidate him.

“We care _nothing_ for your petty trifles,” the Other says. “Your war is yours and yours alone. Once you have given us what we have been promised, you will be of no concern to us. And you _will_ give it to us.”

He closes in.

“Do not forget my warnings, Asgardian. You have done nothing yet. You may think your time as our prisoner taught you all there is to His cruelty, but if you betray us, you will find yourself sorely mistaken.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Loki answers steadily.

The Other retracts his finger.

“You will have it for us by the next sunrise, and not a moment later,” he says. “Your petulance has cost you dearly. We will not wait any longer for the tesseract. Have it for us, or you will suffer, greater suffering than you have ever known.”

 _‘Your first threat was better,’_ Loki’s traitorous mind says.

“Is that a promise?” he asks, without a single change in expression. He doesn’t move or do anything else as the Other draws himself closer. They look deep into each other’s eyes.

“It is an _oath.”_

The world of Thanos is sucked away from all around him. It disappears into a vacuum, sending him back to the filthy tunnel. Loki blinks, feels his feet planted firmly on the ground, and knows he never left. Air expels from his lungs. How long has he been holding it in. His entire body is shivering, and it won’t stop. It’s residue from the intense cold and nothing more. Loki has trouble keeping himself upright and slumps over on the wall. It’s dirtier than the ground, but he doesn’t care. He is shaking harder, more completely. This time, it’s nothing to do with any cold.

Loki laughs, long and loud until his stomach hurts. He can no longer breath, sucks in tiny puffs of air on instinct. There is a cornucopia of emotion swirling around, but relief is at the forefront. Relief and joy. After a while, he knows he has to stop before he suffocates himself.

“You- you fools,” he says, or rather chokes out. “You have no idea what you are dealing with! You can’t…”

Just what they couldn’t do would never be revealed and would remain with Loki, as he is overcome with boundless mirth, the likes of which he hasn’t felt in years. He thinks of how Thor gets when he’s had a certain number of drinks. Too few to be incoherent and not enough to be irrational. He suddenly finds everything around him humorous. He will laugh at the valiant and noble Guardsman passed in the corner with dried vomit on his shirt like it’s not the most pathetic sight in the world. Loki, who never before understood how even alcohol could bring anyone to such a state, stands completely sober in the bowels of Midgard, and now it’s perfectly clear.

Even when his joy is spent and he falls into silence, he cannot stop the grin on his face. He sees the realm spread out before him once again, his for the taking. He knows now that it is real, saw it in the Other’s eyes and heard it in his voice. That deplorable creature may think himself superior and in control, but he is just as blind as the Midgardians. Just as unaware.

Though shreds of doubt still exist, Loki shuts them out. He reminds himself that this has always felt too real to be imagined. He may have denied it at first, but no longer.

There was just one more thing he needed to know.

**  
 _Day Six_

Loki goes through the motions.

He allows Stark to finish spewing his nonsense before ‘becoming enraged’ and throwing him out the window. It goes without saying, he mastered deception ages ago. When he grabs Stark around the neck, his face shows frustration and rage. It comes out in his voice as well. He’s actually just really bored right now.

He still avoids Thor, but that little encounter bares no importance anyway. Thor fought as well as ever with a stab wound in his stomach. Not having it makes no difference, other than to speed things up a bit.

When that’s done, Loki flies the usual route on his flier, watching with disinterest the chaos beneath him. The screams of the Mortals are so bothersome. If only they knew what good he could do them if they’d just stop fighting him. This repetition was going to have quite the downside, in giving him less and less patience with their impudence. Loki shakes his head and looks away. It’s neither here nor there for now.

He catches the arrow again, braces himself for the explosion and the impact with the stone floor of Stark’s tower. It doesn’t hurt as much this time, nor does it take him by surprise when the Hulk bursts in. Loki mentally sighs as he gets to his feet and prepares for the inevitable.

“ENOUGH!” he screams, and as he says his lines, like an actor on the stage, he promises himself this is the last time it’s going to happen. That’s the gist of it anyway. He’s grabbed and thrown before he can finish the thought.

Thus, Loki has ample justification for sitting out the rest of the battle and looks perfectly pathetic and pitiful when Thor and his ragtag friends come for him. He goes ahead and asks for that drink, if only because it’s amusing how much more angry they look. What nerve he has, to ask them for anyone! Only Stark cracks a smile, however briefly. Loki thinks he might have even gotten that drink if it were just the two of them. Nevertheless, Loki is gagged and in chains within the hour. He’s left in a holding cell for the obligatory hour and a half Thor spends partaking in whatever this Shwrama Stark keeps babbling about is. Like the first four times, he passes time by glaring at his hapless guards and making them quake with fear. It’s a nice way to boast his morale, knowing that he can still come off as a threat, even when defeated.

Of course, he’s not truly defeated. Not anymore.

They arrive in Asgard on schedule. Thor’s band of fools is awaiting him again and once the sickeningly sweet reunions are through, the trek back to the palace begins.

Perfect.

Loki keeps his eyes forward, as does the rest of the procession. Golden towers loom over him, a sight he is slowly becoming re-accustomed to. It still baffles him at times that he was only in Thanos’ realm for what amounts to a year or two. Time seems to move faster now that he’s out.

They make it to the front gates, and suddenly Loki remembers everything. The garden is to the left and down the cobblestone walkway. The sparring arenas are just past them, so close, that he’d had to put silencing spells on his favorite reading spot in the corner of the garden, just so he wouldn’t have to hear Fandral and Volstagg argue like children over who got a hit on who first. Inside the palace, he knows which doors lead to the servant’s quarters and which to the kitchens. He knows that the first hall they enter leads directly to two places: the dungeons he’s been dragged through four times before, and…

“Father will see you tomorrow. He is not ready to give out your punishment yet. You will be brought before him at dawn.”

That’s his cue.

Loki stops walking, and stands completely still. Thor is too far ahead to notice right away. His hand on Loki’s chains jerks, almost making Loki fall on his face. Thor turns around, looking dumbly confused. Loki wishes he could laugh out loud right now. This is how Thor usually looks when someone gets a hit on an enemy before he does, right before he lets out his rage on some other foolish foe. What with his newfound ‘maturity,’ Loki didn’t think he’d ever get to see this again. Another little perk of this repetition. Loki starts to wonder in what other ways he can use it to mess with Thor’s head. The possibilities are endless.

And Loki will have plenty of time to think about every single one later, when he’s back in his holding cell. He’s going to be a little late today.

“What are you doing?” Thor asks. “Come with me.”

He pulls on the chain, not hard enough to knock Loki off his feet, but enough to make his arms jerk painfully. Loki remains still, and watching Thor with purpose. His false brother’s eyebrow are knotted together.

“Do not be this way, Loki,” he says warningly. “You have no choice. I will carry you over my shoulder if I must.”

 _‘Oh, really?’_ Loki challenges with his eyes. He smiles behind the mask. Thor may not see it, but he knows and he grinds his teeth.

“A bit late for a rebellion,” he says humorlessly.

Loki turns his head, gazing down the opposite end of the hall and injecting as much pain and longing as he can. Thor is a pliable idiot, and he’ll fall for it in a second. Indeed, Loki sees out the corner of his eye that his face is softening. The chains are close to falling from his grasp.

“Is this about Father?” he asks reproachfully. “You wish to see him now?”

Loki gestures lightly with his chin, sucking air in through his nose. He could be holding back tears, for all Thor knows.

“And you will not be moved. It is by the orders of the All-Father himself that you go straight to the dungeons,” he says.

Loki looks deep into Thor’s conflicted eyes, pleading with him.

 _‘What do you care? You can do this for me. I’m your_ brother, _aren’t I?’_

Thor struggles but a moment longer before he lets out a deep sigh. He yanks at Loki’s chain and starts walking… back the way they came.

Loki follows along obediently and inwardly smirks. What’s that Midgardian phrase? It’s like taking candy from a baby.

**  
Thor pushes the door open and the throne room spreads out before them. With sluggish steps, he leads Loki inside. It is a magnificent and familiar space, and Loki is almost happy to see it again. The All-Father is seated at his throne, Gungnir at his side. There are delegates from the Council all around him, arguing over something too trivial for Loki to listen in on. A hush falls over them when they see him. Some of them shy away in fear, but most are glaring, with the deepest hatred and loathing they can muster. Loki gives back just as good, and wonders how many hundreds of years they’ve been holding this in.

They whisper amongst themselves, parting to make a path for the two Princes. Odin is quiet and tense, his free hand clenched in a fist that makes his already pale and aging skin pure white. As Loki gets closer, he counts the wrinkles on the man’s face. They are more numerous than he remembers, assuming his memory is trustworthy. There is a bad taste in his mouth either way.

Loki makes sure to never break eye contact, even as Thor beside him gets down on one knee and bows his head. Loki will never bow before the All-Father again.

“Father, I have retrieved Loki from Midgard,” Thor says.

“So you have,” Odin answers. He gets to his feet. The delegates snap to attention and bow as well, bending low to the ground in a wave as Odin passes. Only he and Loki are still standing.

“He wished to see you now,” Thor goes on. “He… he would not wait for morn’.”

And, of course, Thor won’t make allusions to how easily he was swayed.

Odin nods, but Loki doesn’t doubt he’s not listening anymore. They are within arm’s length of each other, the rest of the world has fallen away for Odin.

“I see…” he croaks. “Leave us, then.”

It’s a vague request, but none of the delegates are going to pretend it applies only to Thor. They file out of the room before Thor gets to his feet, and not a word is spoken between them. They’ll wait until they’re a safe distance away, at a tavern somewhere on the outskirts of the city, and drink while trading ideas of what horrific punishments Loki might receive.

Thor leaves after them, without another word or stolen glance at Loki. He may have wanted to speak, perhaps beg for a lesser sentence on Loki‘s behalf, but he does not. That, at least, Loki is grateful for.

Now that they are alone, Odin gives a long, deep sigh and reaches out. Loki flinches away, thinking he is going to be pulled into a hug or something else undesirable. Instead, Odin’s hand finds the gag.

“Shall I remove this?”

His one eye is clear with something that makes Loki’s throat catch. It makes him wish so much that he could look away, but that would look to Odin like fear or regret. He keeps vigil with his task and doesn’t let himself waver, even when the gag releases and falls useless to the floor. Loki rolls his jaw and the aching dulls to nothing. Odin backs away to his throne, Gungnir clanging in time with his steps. Loki had held that spear once, felt it’s power. It was uncomfortable in his hands, now that he thinks about it. Far too cumbersome.

“I had wished to wait until tomorrow to see you,” Odin says. “Your mother preferred it.”

At the mention of Frigga, Loki feels a stab of pain in his chest. He breathes in deep to dissipate it. She is not his mother, she lied to him like everyone else, she is as worthless to him as the rest of them. That is something Loki must never forget, and what the All-Father can never use to cow him.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he says. “But I suppose I’ve done worse in that regard.”

Odin sends him a withering look, failing to see the humor in Loki’s words just as he always has.

“Loki…” Odin approaches again, and puts a hand on Loki’s cheek. His eyes quiver, but Loki is far too disgusted to care. He backs out of the embrace.

“Do not touch me,” he hisses.

Odin looks like he has been slapped, and Loki wants to laugh. Odin has been through battles the likes of which even Thor has never seen, and here he wants Loki to believe that his rejection causes him more pain than those wars ever did.

_‘Sentiment…’_

Loki brushes it aside. Much as he’d love to continue crushing the All-Father’s hopes for his beloved pet to come home, he has business here. Delaying will only give him more time to try and sway Loki.

“I never believed you dead,” Odin murmurs. “Neither did your mother. Even when Heimdall could no longer see you, I always knew you were out there. It was only a matter of time.”

Loki snorts. “You think you know me so well? I’d never have returned if I had it my way.”

“Yes. Instead, you would take out your grievances on a people who have done no wrong by you,” Odin’s gaze becomes penetrating. Loki almost flinches. “You would invade their home and attempt to control them. You would make yourself not a King, but a Tyrant, and you fail to understand the difference. That is why you could never rule as you are.”

“You speak as though your hands were clean, _Father,_ ” Loki spits out venomously.

“That has no bearing to this,” Odin says, his voice much lower than before. “You may step around the issue as much as you wish, you know the truth. I have hoped and prayed every night since we lost you that you would return. To have it be like this…”

Loki smirks. “But it doesn’t really matter, does it? Your precious war prize is back under your thumb. What difference does it make if it’s one step below you or one thousand?”

“Loki-”

“Did you think I’d just forget it all? Even if I hadn’t tried to take Midgard for myself, do you really believe I would just come back to this supposed family of mine and act as if I truly belonged?”

Loki stops there. His emotions are raging, in his mind and in his chest. His heart is pounding. He bites back all the rest he’s dreamed of saying, knowing that any more and he risks losing control of the situation. Already, the All-Father looks about to call the guards to drag him off. If that happens, he’ll have to do it all over again tomorrow. 

He takes a deep breath.

“But that no longer matters,” he says softly. “I suppose I’ll be punished now.”

Odin grips Gungnir tighter, as if trying to steady himself. “I hadn’t wanted it to be this way.”

“It would have regardless.”

Odin says nothing to refute that.

“For the time being, until something more suitable can be implemented, you will be confined to the dungeons. You will be let out only when I deem you ready, at which point you will again be confined, this time to your chambers. I will strip you of your power, and if you wish it returned you must earn it.”

Loki rolls his eyes, exasperated. “Still trying to play the wise mentor, are we?”

“Do not test me, my son.”

Loki ignores that.

“And what if I wish to refuse that punishment. I’m sure you’ll understand that I would rather not have to spend anymore time in this realm.”

Odin’s mouth tightens. He stands taller, like the King he has been for millennia and would foolishly try to trick Loki into believing he could be more than.

“Loki, you will never leave Asgard again. Not for many years.”

Loki bows his head, hiding his face from view. Then his shoulders start to shake, and for Odin, it must look as though he has finally broken down. A sound of comfort crosses his lips, but it dies when Loki makes it clear that it is not tears of pain running down his face.

He looks back up and he grins like a maniac.

“So it’s as I thought,” he says. “You are as blind as the rest of them. You, the All-Father, with all your power, you can’t even see what is happening.”

He lets out a laugh, louder and freer than the one he’d issued yesterday. As if on cue, the door bursts open and several guards run in. Thor must have ordered them to wait in case something happened. Though Odin appears horrified, Loki can’t tell if it’s because of what he said, or how he is being handled. In any case, he does nothing to stop them when they drag Loki into the hall and towards the dungeons.

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” Loki shouts as the doors slam shut.

**  
 _Day 7_

“Sir, we’re ready to go.”

“Indeed we are,” Loki says cheerfully as he draws himself to full height, and the glow of the tesseract warms him. “Let’s get going, Gentlemen!”

**  
His ‘defeat’ comes quicker today, because by his own admission, he is distracted. He spends the time he should be using to lead the invasion probing the minds of his adversaries. He goes one at a time, skipping over Thor because he’s an open book as it is.

He starts with Rogers, the so-called Captain America. He sees vaguely the scrawny imp he used to be and how desperate he was to fight for his country. Loki sees the countless attempts Rogers made to enlist, and must begrudgingly admit that there is something admirable about his determination. It’s also incredibly stupid of him, of course, but he doubts Rogers would see it that way. Everything else tells Loki that the man is a depressed, heartbroken simpleton. He takes a brief moment to send one of his doubles into SHIELD’s main database to find out what happened to all his little friends. Most are dead, except for the woman he thinks of so fondly. Peggy Carter is her name, and Loki now knows her exact location. He wonders how Rogers would feel about that.

He spends less time with Banner. Somehow the man’s thoughts are even more hopeless. Like Rogers, he dreams of a woman he can never have. Loki has an easier time finding where Ms. Ross is and files that information away as well. He will most likely have no use for it, other than to perhaps torment their lovers with all that he could do to them if they fell under into his grasp.

Stark’s mind is by far the most interesting. When he is not thinking of his suit or the rest of his creations, there is a barrage of women all lined up in a row. He can hear their girlish giggles and see their alluring bodies, but their faces are muted. They blend in to each other, like Stark has never bothered to remeber them. There are only two he can see with perfect clarity. One is clearly not one of Stark’s conquest, but an older woman with a soft beauty to her, whom Loki can’t look at for long because she reminds him too much of Frigga.

The second, Loki knows right away. Pepper Potts takes up much of Stark’s thoughts, and it appears to have been this way for the longest time, even while he was collecting all those faceless women. Loki can’t fathom how a man could love a woman for so long and gain nothing from it, but that is neither here nor there. He’s just glad he never let himself get caught in such a trap.

He goes into Barton’s mind next and stops short. Amid his former slave’s memories of past missions and archery techniques, there is something more. It is buried deep, but so ingrained in Barton‘s psyche that Loki couldn‘t have missed it. He see images that, for anyone else of that age, wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. For Barton…

And the moment he sees it, Loki goes straight for Romanov.  What he finds in her mind matches up perfectly with Barton. That is when Loki abandons the task and goes back to chaos on hand. It’s highly doubtful they would have heard Loki’s roaring laughter in their heads, but he doesn’t want to take the chance. After what he’s just found, there are far greater ways to strike terror into their hearts.

So this was what Romanov _really_ meant, when she said love was for children.

When he’s sitting in his cell at the end of this latest repeat, Loki gets lost in his thoughts of what he’s seen and learned, and just how he can use it. He remembers the mortals who once worshipped him. They had called his the God of Lies, and it’s not too far off. What interests Loki now is another patronage they assigned him: The God of Mischief.

 _‘Well,’_ Loki thinks as he relaxes against the cold and damp wall and smirks devilishly to himself. _‘I suppose there’s time enough for that.’_

**  
 _Day 8_

He waits inside for Stark, instead of meeting him outside for their pre-emptive stare-off. Stark touches down and goes through his suit removal machinery while Loki lounges on the couch with his boots up on the coffee table. The glass has a crack running across from his weight.

Early this morning, he’d held off on leaving with Selvig and the tesseract to run a small errand. It took him more time to find what he was looking for than when he was seeking out Rogers’ and Banner’s lovers, but success didn't elude him. He tracked down a particular house in a particular town, and walked, invisible, into a particular bedroom where a particular someone slept. He took a moment to confirm her identity, check in with the other denizens of the tiny abode, and then was back in his hideout and ready to start another day.

He’s going to have a very interesting meeting with Barton and Romanov later.

Until then, Loki grins up at Stark, like he’s never been happier to see anyone in his life.

“Oh, Anthony, you’re finally arrived. I wish you wouldn’t keep me waiting.”

He resists the urge to laugh at Stark’s bewildered face. Whatever intimidation or threats he expected, that was as far from it as possible.

“Yeah sorry, I got… held up.”

He eyes Loki’s raised feet on his, probably very expensive, table.

“Please, make yourself at home.”

“Thank you! It’s lovely to see what a gentleman you’ve become.”

Loki then silences whatever questions Stark may have by taking up the book beside him and flicking through the pages. It’s a large tome from Stark's personal library. Loki was unsurprised to find it out and open to a marked page when he examined the man’s living quarters. A caricature of himself, dressed in a surprising accurate representation of his armor, stares back at him. He will say the artist didn’t do his facial features justice, though.  His nose is not nearly that large.

“I see you’ve been catching up on your reading,” he says airily. “Such interesting stories you Midgardians tell about us.”

“Yeah, I like that one where you bone a horse. That’s a good one.”

Stark walks snickering to his bar and grabs a bottle of wine, while Loki grinds his teeth and drops the book on the table.

“Yes, well, there have been embellishments…” he boredly inches the book a little more away from him. “But some of those tales have truth to them. For example, my exploits under the guise of a woman.”

Stark pops the top of his wine bottle and pours himself a glass, but his eyes are on Loki.

“Is that so?”

“Oh yes,” Loki answers with an eager nod. “I’ve spent a great deal of time as the opposite sex. I’ve even birthed children, as you no doubt have read.”

“Yeah,” Stark half-whispers before taking a short drink. “Not gonna lie, those parts kind of creeped me out.”

Loki feigns disapproval. “Now what an awful thing to say, Anthony. I’ll have you know, I’ve had some of my happiest times as a woman and a wife. Why, just a few decades ago I met and married a most wonderful man and bore him a son. Our son grew into a fine and handsome man like his father, if not one with a perchance for vice.”

“Sounds like my kind of guy,” Stark says.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Loki says knowingly. He gets up from the couch and walks to Stark, who has his back to him now as he searches for something else to add to his drink. “My only regret is that I wasn’t able to watch my son go out and take on the world. After the death of his father, I’m afraid I fell into something of a depression that it took me far too long to come out of. I still miss him even now, my darling Howard.”

Stark freezes for a moment, the bottle of liquor nearly falling from his grasp. He whirls around just in time for Loki’s magic to flare, his appearance morphing into that of the woman in Stark’s memories. His eyes bug out as Maria Stark’s face smiles evilly and comes in close.

“Give Mommy a kiss, Anthony.”

**  
When the Hulk bursts into the destroyed remains of the tower, he finds Loki, beaten and bruised, struggling to get to his feet and escape another fight. The Hulk roars and begins to charge, but Loki isn’t having any of it.

“ENOUGH!” he screams, stopping the beast dead in his tracks. “You’re all of you beneath me. I am a GOD, you dull creature. And I will not be bullied by-”

He is cut off when the Hulk decides he doesn’t feel like listening anymore, and swings a mighty hand at Loki… which goes straight through him. The Hulk gives a confused grunt as Loki’s body shimmers and vanishes before his eyes. He then snaps his head around when he hears someone tsking.

“Such rudeness from you,” Loki says from his new spot by the elevator door. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to interrupt when someone else is talking?”

The Hulk roars and flies at Loki, ready to tackle him to the ground, but again, he walks through air.

“Oh, so close,” Loki says from right behind him.

The Hulk goes in with a punch, unsurprisingly hitting a mere spector which fades just like it’s predecessor. Loki now appears to be several feet away to the left.

“Keep trying, you’ll get it right eventually,” he taunts.

The Hulk screams and charges again. With each destroyed illusion come another, all over the room until the Hulk is running in circles, at this point so deeply frustrated and enraged that what ability he has to think clearly has long since slipped away. He slams a fist through a double for the tenth time, while the actual Loki stands invisible in the far corner, feeling as bright as a child before a pile of gifts as he creates yet another double, which laughs with him at the Hulk.

**  
Upon his ‘capture,’ Loki notes that Stark is absent. It’s a bit strange since he knows Ironman was involved in the fight as usual (if perhaps less so). Later on, he hears from a SHIELD agent that Stark’s gone back to his tower and is guzzling down his entire remaining bar while muttering something about his mother.

The Hulk appears in a similar state of duress, and Loki imagines he’ll have a much harder time calming down than usual this time around. Loki pays him no heed as Thor pulls him roughly to his feet and brings him outside. There are several agents waiting for them with the same old chains and mask ready for him. The Avengers watch with tired, cold eyes as Thor gives his thanks and takes them. The chains are fastened around his wrists first, and then Thor raises the mask.

In his head, Loki counts down to the right moment. It comes right before the mask is about to hit his bare skin and stifle his power of speech. He turns his head slightly to the right, to Barton and Romanov who are standing side by side before him.

“Chloe is doing well.”

And the mask goes on, so that Loki can only grin beneath it at their reactions. Romanov is still holding the stolen staff, which she clutches tight enough now, that he thinks she might break it. Her jaw has fallen and a strangled cry issues from her throat. Barton is in a similar state, with the addition of a glare that promises Loki a slow and painful death. It comes off as hilarious to him.

Everyone else is staring at them now, confused and, in the case of several SHIELD agents, completely gobsmacked. Loki just wishes he could see how they’re going to explain themselves.

He goes back to Asgard with a spring in his step, and doesn’t try to fight off his confinement in the cell. He thinks it’s almost a shame that everything will be reset again in the morning. Today was the most fun he’s had in years.

Of course, tomorrow is the day in which the _real_ fun is to be had…

**  
 _Day 9_

“Sir, we’re ready to go.”

He looks at the man’s empty expression and nods with a terrible grin.

“Oh yes, we most certainly are.”

**  
He starts with Banner.

After tracking his route in the last several repititions, it’s all too easy for him to find an appropriate hiding place, several miles outside the city, in a spot Banner always passes on his motorized contraption. Loki can’t be bothered to recall the name for it.

He leans casually against a tree, invisibility in place, and waits like the predetor he has become. It’s not long before he hears the whirring of the machine’s engine. It’s close now, and getting closer by the second. With every inch it travels, Loki’s heart beats faster, his hands shake harder, and his excitement rises further. Now Banner comes into view.

Loki works like lightning, casting the spell to completely paralyze Banner’s body. His vehicle falls to the ground and takes the prone scientist with it. Powerless to move, and yet still fully conscious, Banner’s wide and fear-filled eyes are locked on Loki as he reveals himself across the way.

Now, there are many possible reasons for what happens next. It’s not a moment Loki is incredibly proud of later on, and his first reason is that it reflects so poorly on him to have such a lapse in self control, however brief. It may be his general state of turmoil mixed with one too many ‘Hulk Smashes’ that got him to let out an ear shattering scream, run at Banner and throw him several feet into the air onto the rocks below. He lands painfully on his back, and Loki is pretty sure he hears something crack. He forgets about magic for a moment and concentrates on slamming Banner into the ground over and over again, until his body is a shattered mess. At that point, Loki grabs his chin in a death grip, lifts him off his feet into the air. When he speaks in hushed tones, it is deadly.

_“Puny human.”_

**  
Without the Hulk, the Avengers are weakened.

They put up as much of a fight as ever, and were it them trapped in this repetition instead, they may have one day come upon a way to defeat the Chitauri themselves. As it is, those who remain are chained and on their knees before him by noon. The city they fought so hard for is burning to the ground around them.

Loki walks up and down the line-up. He only has three of them, Rogers having most likely perished in a fire some time ago. Loki didn’t stick around long enough to confirm. Stark is similarly missing, having flown off to parts unknown with SHIELD’s missile. Loki only found out about that two repeats ago, otherwise he would’ve killed the annoying man first thing at the tower. This seems just as good a way to get rid of him. He only wonders where over the vast ocean that missile wound up going off.

While sirens and screams and explosions fill the air, Loki calls forth a pair of soldiers to take Barton and Romanov away. They have been gagged, and can only glare at him, with the deepest kind of loathing, as they are pulled to their feet and onto a flier.

Loki bares down on Thor, who is on his knees with his head bowed. Matted blond hair masks his face, but Loki can picture the shame and defeat he is feeling and that’s almost as good. Almost, but not quite.

With the end of the staff, Loki forces Thor’s head up. The action is soft, a mocking gentleness. The look in Thor’s eyes tells him that his false brother doesn’t believe for a second that there is love left in him. Compassion. Sentiment.

And thank goodness for that. Loki was getting tired of trying to convince him. So much so, that he can’t even derive any joy from his victory over him, just a cold sort of emptiness. Why does Thor always have to ruin everything.

“So, what do you think?” Loki raises his arms with relish at the chaotic scene. “The first step on my road to ruling this rock. It’s just a shame your precious SHIELD won’t survive to see it’s completion. But if you’re on your best behavior, you just might.”

“Loki,” Thor growls. He sounds angry, but doesn’t look it. It’s amazingly pathetic and Loki can’t believe for a moment that he’s looking at the same Mighty Thor he stood behind all those years. _“Why?”_

Loki really wishes Thor would stop doing that. Trying to understand, trying to reason with him. If only Thor was reasonable, he would’ve given up a long time ago. Loki thinks about shifting into his unfortunate ‘true’ form, and reminded Thor that the one he called Brother has never even existed. If the thought alone didn’t revolt him so much, he might’ve done it.

“Is that really all you can say?”

He waits only a second for an answer, which he does not receive. With a swish of his cape, Loki leaves, walking long enough to hear more of his troops coming back for Thor before he teleports himself away.

He lands at the top of Stark Tower. It’s in far better condition today than in the last few repetitions. He takes a quick scan of the layout of this floor. Stark’s room is at the opposite end, newly cleaned and made out for him. Loki supposes the man won’t mind if he borrows it.

He reminds himself to get new lodgings tomorrow. Much as he’d enjoy taking up residence in Stark’s pride and joy- if only temporarily- the building itself is hideous, even more than the rest of this city’s structures. Where did Midgard learn such poor architecture. Only a few that he’d seen were even slightly impressive. All the rest would have to go, once he had established his rule over the rest of this realm.

He enters the bedroom and walks straight through it to the door leading downstairs. It’s a strange design choice that there would be a door leading to the lab, but that’s just Stark for you. It’s convenient for Loki as well. He’s had everything set up now for hours.

He walks by newly drawn figures and runes all over the empty floors and walls. Loki had an easy time eliminating all of Stark’s mess. What he didn’t feel like carrying in a dimensional pocket, he’d simply destroyed. This included several copies of the Ironman armor, along with a computer module that extended from the floor to the ceiling. It was strange, because right after Loki ripped it from it’s place, he thought he heard a voice coming from it. What it was saying, he couldn’t understand, and when he didn’t hear it again, he dismissed it as nothing.

With the wide room now clear, Loki had plenty of room to prepare for the intricate and very advanced spell work. It was a reworked version of a time stopping spell Loki had learned fairly recently. Only three hundred years ago, so advanced it was. He had recreated it to work in the opposite way himself, at the time for no reason other than to prove he could. Perhaps _that_ was some form of precognition on his part.

He goes to stand inside the largest circle.

“I don’t know why I was blessed with this gift of time,” he thinks aloud. “But I have no more use for it. To have it now would only delay me further.”

He takes a moment, and begins to chant.

**  
He goes straight to bed when it’s over. With a wave he removes his armor, slightly charred from the backlash of magic. It had been intense, but entirely worth it. All of Loki’s examination afterward spoke of nothing but success. The spell had worked. He is free of the repetition.

He isn’t really tired, but he lays down regardless, knowing that he has some very big days ahead of him. More land to conquer, more foes to defeat. Of course, none of them could be as formidable as the Avengers had been (not that that was saying much), but at least he would be spared the headaches.

Loki lays awake for hours, reveling in his victory and those that are to follow. Who knows what will happen once he’s finally in control, what he can do.

Well, aside from keeping the tesseract as far from Thanos’s filthy hands as possible.

There is a woman out there, small and plain, who somehow did for Thor what no one else could. What was her name? Jane something?

If Loki remembers correctly, he promised Thor that he’d pay her a visit sometime.

That's one possibility.

**  
 _Day 10_

Loki remembers yesterday’s events the instant he wakes up. A grin lights up his features. He’s still high off his win, because he doesn’t notice anything wrong with his surroundings until he opens his eyes.

And he’s in his hideout.

And the tesseract is out and glowing.

And there’s that one mind controlled soldier.

“Sir, we’re ready to go.”

Loki stares at him. For the longest time, he does that and nothing else. Even after the tesseract has been packed and loaded safely in the truck for transport, and Selvig and the driver are waiting in front of the vehicle for him to give the order to leave, he’s still staring.

While he’s staring, he is clenching one fist, so tight that his fingernails are digging into the skin of his hand and drawing blood. _Real_ blood that drips down his wrist from wounds that _sting._

“Aha…”

Loki’s mouth falls open, a wave of something is crashing in his mind, clouding it. It’s so debilitating that Loki cannot get it out in words.

“Ahaha…”

There is only one way possible now.

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-"

**  
He’s still laughing while on the Chitauri flier, with fire and war going on all around him. Earlier on, he’d laughed right in Tony Stark’s face, ending his impassioned speech before it began. Stark would eventually just take his armor and leave, apparently too disturbed by Loki’s behavior to want to bother with him.

He never stops, and is even happy to catch Barton’s arrow this time and let it throw him into the tower with the Hulk, who can't make him stop now matter how hard he smashes him.

When they invariably come for him, Loki has somewhat calmed down. He turns around and sees them waiting for him, weary and beaten down from battle, but no less unflappable. There are weapons at the ready, unfeeling eyes on him, anger mingled with pain from a certain someone.  It's all just hilarious.

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-”

He’s in hysterics. Tears are streaming down his face and he’s feeling more and more like his stomach is about to rip open. But here they are again and they have defeated him again and they are standing over him again and it’s too damn much right now.

“He’s still doing it,” Stark mutters under his breath.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-”

Stark nudges at Barton. “Well, what are you waiting for, tie him up.”

Barton, whose been slowly lowering his arrow, glances several times from Stark to Loki and clears his throat.

“You know, Tony, you’ve done so much today, and pretty much saved all our lives. I think it’s only fair that you do the honors.”

“Oh, that’s sweet,” Stark says, giving the still laughing Loki an uneasy look himself. “But you’re the SHIELD agent. I’m just a civilian- albeit a rich, handsome, and eternally more badass than you civilian- you do it.”

“No, no, I think you should do it.”

“But I insist.”

“So do I and I have authority over you.”

“Since when?”

“I’m a SHIELD agent, you’re a civilian.”

“Okay, you can’t do that.”

“AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-”

They look to him again, going paler than before and more than ready to hightail it out of here. Stark calls out to the Hulk.

“Hey! Big Green! How about you do it? Come on, you know you want to.”

The Hulk, proving once again his complete and total conscious control over himself, glances at Tony, takes one long look at Loki-

And turns and walks away.

“Oh, you’ve _got_ to be _kidding_ me!”

Tony prepares to rush after him, but a bright light and the sudden cut off of Loki’s laughter stops him. He finds his comrades shocked and confused, staring at the empty spot Loki just occupied.

“Uh… where’d he go?”

**  
Loki throws a burst of magic. In an instant, fifty trees are disintegrated, and the field he’s dropped himself off in is bare of all but dirt and what burnt up bits of grass and wood survived his onslaught.

With a feral growl, Loki pulls a long rod out of the air and begins drawing the runes on the ground.

“No…” he hisses as he works. He completes the first portion faster than his mind can process and moves on to the second one. They are cruder than the carefully applied and calculated circles from before, but they will do.

“No. No. Nononononono-”

His thought process consists of nothing else. Nothing but today and yesterday. He knows the spell by heart, even though it’s only been used one time.

One _successful_ time.

It was successful.

It had to have been.

“No. No. No. NO!”

He finishes his work with sweat pouring down his face. His body is warm and he’s feeling faint, but he keeps moving. He makes up by magically removing his armor. He winds up in the center of the circle barefoot, clad only in breeches and a loose shirt. He all but yells out the spell, the strength of which eliminates even more of the forest and causes the ground to shake.

_‘This time, it will work. This time…’_

**  
 _Day 11_

“Sir, we’re ready to go.”

The man goes flying headfast into a cement wall.

**

Tony enters his pristine and untouched tower to find Loki, God of Lies and Mischief and whatnot, sitting on his couch with an indeterminable number of empty and half full liquor bottles surrounding him. Most roll around at his feet. His foot collides with one and sends it flying into the wall and he kicks back and downs an entire bottle without pause. If it wasn’t his most recent arch-enemy and he wasn’t so weirded out right now, Tony would be impressed.

Loki looks at him through dulled, lazy eyes that are so unlike him that Tony doesn’t know how to take it.

“This… Midgardian alcohol is so disappointing,” he says bitterly, staring at the bottle in his hand. “I’ve had thirty so far, and it‘s had absolutely no effect.”

He punctuates the last word by throwing the bottle over Tony’s head. It shatters and rains glass down behind him. Pepper’s going to have a fit when she sees that. Loki picks up and uncorks another bottle, which he also chugs down. Tony eyes the label.

“Ah, that one’s a Chateau Latour. It’s very rare-”

He has to stop and duck when Loki throws this bottle too, right at his head. Loki rubs his forehead and groans before standing.

“Alright,” he says, grabbing Tony by the neck before he can stop him. Tony tries to pry it off, but he might as well be pushing at a brick wall. “Let’s get this over with. ‘You’re trying to threaten me. The Avengers will stop me. Something about a headcount, you, Thor, Barton, Romanov, the rest. I will not succeed no matter what I do because if you can't save this realm, you'll _avenge_ it. Is that about right?”

He looks at Tony, who is just trying to figure out what the hell is happening right now and how much of his liquor Loki has actually consumed at this point. Loki shrugs his shoulders. It’s weird, him making that gesture.

“I suppose so. Alright, out the window you go!”

He starts walking- dragging Tony to the window. He is right there and rearing back his arm to throw, and then he stops. Tony exhales with difficulty but isn’t even close to relieved yet.

“Oh yes, I almost forgot.” Loki returns to the bar, never loosening his grip until they’re there and Tony must watch in shock and anger as Loki pulls out the bracelet he’d been discreetly trying to grab like he’s known all along that it was there.

“Was it the right one?” Loki seems to be asking himself more than Tony, who can’t answer anyway. Loki snatches his wrist and shoves the bracelet on. It pinches some of the nerves and makes Tony wince, but then they’re going back to the window. From this close up, Loki looks all too pale and maybe even tired.   _Wei-ird._

“Please aim straight for my head when you fly back up and shoot at me. It shouldn’t do much, but there is a slight chance the blow may kill me.”

Loki blasts out the window and hurls Tony over the edge.

**  
 _Day 12_

The next day finds Loki outside.  The sun is high in the sky, and he hasn’t done a thing since waking up besides leave the tunnels and walk the streets. He hasn’t gone half a block when he decides that this entire city is utterly repulsive. When the noise level isn’t making his ears scream, he is assaulted by a myriad of smells that would be bad enough on their own. Together, they make him want nothing more than to level the place. He only hasn’t because that would just draw the Avengers to him and he is not in the mood for that today.

In his search for something that isn’t a grey building, a peddler selling twisted bits of dough, or a yellow car honking at everything, he finds himself in the only wooded area to be found. He’s not exactly happy to be here, because the exact place he is always brought to for his return trip to Asgard. He finds an empty bench and sits down. He has done nothing to mask himself beyond donning another Midgardian suit. Most of his focus is going to shielding his thoughts from the Other, whose presence he felt earlier in the day and successfully blocked. So far, there hasn’t been another attempt, but he wasn’t about to take chances. It also helps that he could glare away anyone foolish enough to look his way. Usually, it was women of varying ages who looked at him the way women on Asgard often looked at Thor. The one time something different happens, it’s a tiny slip of a girl who can’t be older than five. She has bright yellow pigtails, green eyes and freckles. She runs through crowrds of oblivious people, tears blurring her vision.

“Daddy! Daddy! Where are you?”

She stops to catch her breath in front of where he sits. Loki looks at the clouds to dissuade her from speaking to him. It doesn’t work.

“Excuse me, Mister,” she says, placing little hands on his pants leg. “Mister? Have you seen my Daddy? I can’t find him anywhere.”

Loki growls and jerks his knee away. The girl hiccups, then runs back the way she came, crying harder than ever and screaming for her father to come and help her. It’s a great mercy when she’s too far away to be heard any longer.

Loki no longer wants to sit here, but every time he thinks about getting up and leaving, something keeps his feet planted firmly in place. He’s thought about going and trying the spell again, almost convinced himself a dozen times, but the weight of not one, but two failures always drops back down on him. What angers him most is himself, for sinking this low. He thinks about tomorrow, when he’ll wake up again underground, and again to some worthless human telling him it’s time to go and fight a losing battle again. There are many different ways he can take that. He can go along with the plan and invade the city and lose. He can eliminate key members of the opposition early enough to grant him a victory. He can take out SHIELD’s helicarrier before the bomb can be launched so he can just get rid of Stark without problems. He can do nothing and sit in the middle of the very beings he wished to rule like he’s doing right now.

He can do anything he likes. He can raze the entire planet to the ground. He just can’t stop it all from being whole and unharmed again the next day.

He _can’t_ stop this.

Loki groans, and brings his hands to his face to block out the sun. Somewhere in the distance, there are alarms going off, and people fighting and swearing at each other like they are about to start a fight. Loki’s thinks he’ll be sick if he’s continually subjected to this wretched place.

Perhaps a change of scenery is in order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news everyone: Loki and Jane may meet next chapter! *celebrate*
> 
> I say 'may' because that all depends on how long the next chapter winds up being. I mean, long chapters are kind of a thing for me these days (this one is over 13000 words), but I'd rather this not be a continuing trend. So, if the next chapter runs too long, I'll be cutting it into two and then they will meet the chapter after next. All that remains to be seen, of course.
> 
> But I'll tell you right now, their first meeting is going to be a doozy. *wink*
> 
> Also, I'd like to take the time to announce that there will be several prequel oneshots written for this story. I can only tell you about one right now, since the other involves massive spoilers for later in the story. The first one will not be Lokane, sadly. It will actually be about Clint and Natasha, and will explain what Loki was talking about at the end of Day 8, assuming anyone didn't figure it out for themselves. All your questions will be answered when it's posted (in the Avengers section), so keep an eye out for it!


	6. Days 15-17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...

_Day 15: Jane Foster_

It takes Jane three times to get it right.

After listening to Hilda's fun little flight of fancy in cycle 12, Jane excused herself back to her room, claiming a headache. She knew from experience that Jacobine would be sympathetic, and wasn't surprised when Hilda's protests are soundly shut down before they can get off the ground.

She waited in her room for an hour and a half, doodling constellations in her notebook when she wasn't watching the clock. She arrived to the docks at 9:20, just as a group of men overseen by the ferry's captain were carrying large, stamped boxes into the facility. She kept her distance at first, looking over the size and shape of the vessel. Living in New Mexico, she never had the time, nor the desire, to go out to the beach. The ferry that brought her to this island was the first boat she'd ever even set foot on. Beyond the front being called the bow and the back, the stern, Jane knew nothing about them. Not that that's going to stop her.

Once it felt safe, she moved closer, walking along like she was supposed to be there. One of the workers, a fairly good looking man with well muscled arms who seemed to be carrying all of the really big boxes himself, spotted her as she was slowing down to look at the large door on the side of the ferry. It had lowered to form a bridge over the foot or so of space between the ferry and the dock. Something of that size should be easy to sneak through, assuming nobody saw her.

"Morning, Ma'am, something you need?" the man asked pleasantly.

Jane smiled back. "No, just getting some fresh air. Sorry if I'm bothering you."

"Nah, it's fine. Better than fine, actually. You don't see a lot of pretty faces in my line of work."

Jane had laughed along with him and left shortly after. The man was polite enough in his obvious flirting, but Jane didn't care to hear more. That, and she'd never been very good at flirting back, even when she was a teenager. Sometimes, like right then, she'd remember the few times she'd made an attempt at confessing to a crush. Years had passed and they still made her cringe with embarrassment.

Jane carried on with her spying from afar, until the work was done and the door raised back up, as painstakingly slow as when it was lowered. Jane counted out twenty-one seconds, then went back inside and sneaked back to her room, where she would spend the rest of the day formulating her plan.

The very simple idea of just not doing this had been on her mind from the start. What good would it do her go gallivanting around some foreign country when she didn't know her way around and didn't speak the language? Why would she even think about it when she'd spent the last eight or nine cycles repeatedly telling herself that she couldn't act like the loop was a good thing? What would it even accomplish when she'd just be back in this same old bed in the morning anyway?

It had almost made her let the whole thing go and just go back to her room until the next cycle began, like she'd been doing every day.

Like she would be doing in the next cycle as well, and the cycle after that, and the cycle after that.

And that's where Jane threw aside that option and never considered it again.

In Cycle 13, she was caught right away. It was her fault for misjudging the amount of time it took for the door to close, and for being distracted. She had waited by the door, pressed up against the ships's wall as far as she could, with her stomach sucked in. Skinny as she was, she would take no risks, slight they may be. This in mind, she went over once again all the safety precautions she'd come up with. Keep to the corners, stay behind the taller boxes, be near the door when docking on the mainland so to run out at first notice. She repeated them a second time to be sure, a bit less focused thanks to that annoying grinding in her ear. It was fast becoming a nuisance by the time Jane realized the door was closing up. She made it inside when there was only enough space for her to squeeze through, and then it slammed shut with a bunch of her hair caught in between. Jane didn't realize at first and kept moving, nearly tearing off half her scalp in the process. Her screams drew the sailors' attention, and the next thing Jane knew, she was in Dr. Ahlberg's office. The ship's captain yelled at her in broken English while the doctor herself stood silent in the background. It ended with her confined to her room for the rest of the night, Dr. Ahlberg 'casually' mentioning that she might not be able to convince the Captain not to press charges and how badly that would reflect on their establishment if word got out. The irrationally angry and cynical side of her wondered if Dr. Ahlberg actively had something against her.

Hilda and Jacobine came by later that night. Though they weren't allowed in, they yelled to her through the door for a good ten minutes.

"Just what the hell were you thinking?!" Jacobine scolded her.

"I've been dreaming of doing this for months. I admire you so much right now, Jane," said Hilda.

Cycle 14 saw Jane learning from her mistakes. She went over the plan well before it was time to go. She waited for breakfast to formally end before taking off. Jacobine and Hilda had already said goodbye and went off to do their own work, so Jane had no need to explain herself to anyone. Thank the Lord.

Down at the docking grounds, she spotted the flirty worker from yesterday. He smiled and nodded at her as he passed, but she must've been early, because he didn't say a word. The giant boxes he had hefted over his shoulders may have been part of it. He smiled again when he came out empty handed, but again, no dialogue was exchanged.

The time came. Jane waited in the same spot, hair tied up in a bun, watching that door like a hawk and stepping aboard the instant it moved. She lost her balance walking in and almost fell. A pile of boxes kept her steady, and she crouched down in the corner behind it. It was covered in dirt and bugs and the closing of the door left the room in pitch darkness. Jane fished out her phone, and it provided her enough light that she could make do.

The trip was over an hour long. Jane spent it with her arms wrapped around her waist, reminding herself to bring a warmer coat next time. She heard male voices up ahead, most of them speaking Norwegian. There must've been more than one English speaker on board though, because she could clearly hear the voice shouting 'Land', overladen with another voice speaking the same word in Norwegian. The ferry hit a rough patch that almost knocked Jane over again, a feat considering she was seated. When it stopped completely, Jane cautiously rose. Nothing moved again, so she breathed a sigh of relief.

The door cracked open, and Jane took a moment to look out at the wide area of dock made from sturdy and damp wood, then she jumped out into the fresh, cool air and felt the wind blowing in her face. It was the exact same wind that blew on the island, but here, it felt so good. She saw a few houses lined up on the block, with cars driving all around in either direction. There was nothing very fancy about it, this wasn't New York or London or anything, but there was color and people and life everywhere she looked. Jane loved it immediately.

"Hey!" someone shouted. Jane was halfway up the dock by now, the smell of fish beginning to overwhelm her senses, and didn't realize the voice was directed at her until someone grabbed her arm.

"Excuse me-" she started to say as she turned around. She came face to face with the flirty worker, who didn't look so flirty anymore.

"Didn't I see you back at the Island?" he demanded.

Jane flinched under accusing eyes. As if that wasn't incriminating enough, she had to start talking too.

"Uh... no, I don't think so. I'm just taking a walk along the pier, thanks. If you'll please-"

"Oh no," the man said with a shake of his head. "I definitely saw you there. You're coming with me."

And then Jane was dragged back to the ship, the not-so-flirty man shouting in Norwegian, calling forth the Captain. He was as irritable and red-faced as ever, and Jane groaned out loud when he started shouting at her.

Cycle 15 begins like all the rest. With a 'Come On Elieen...' and a 'Time to get up, Ms. Foster...' and a 'Come on Jane, get moving...' Jane's taken to mouthing along with it at this point while she rolls over to face the wall with a pillow over her head.

She waits by the door for the third time. Her bulky winter coat impedes on her ability to stay hidden, but she remains undetected and gets on board without obstacle. Another sixty minutes of the waiting game ensues, one that has Jane grateful for her apparent immunity to seasickness, and then she hears the call of 'Land' once again.

She waits this time, quietly in the shadows, as the door opens. She pulls her furry hood over her head and pulls the strings tight. She waits for the flirty man to appear, and he does so out another exit, shouting back at the ship and laughing at something. Another couple of men follow him, and then Jane decides it's time to make her move. If she's caught, she'll just have to try again tomorrow.

She jumps out, and scrambles off to the side, trying not to make any noise and draw attention to herself. Nobody shouts right away, but she's not about to take chances. Lowering her hooded head, Jane pretends to be examining one of the smaller fishing boats while men walk by and never spare her so much as a glance. It feels safe to move when the ferry goes to dock, and then Jane runs. She slows down at the halfway point to a leisurely jog. A few people look at her then, likely just to ogle at the weirdo jogging in the cold air.

Jane walks up the street, past red, blue and orange painted square buildings, reading off the words on signs that make no sense to her, and she's on the curb when it hits her: she made it.

She's really made it.

Jane stands there for the longest time, letting this sink in. A hundred different possibilities are before her now. She's off the island, she's in town. It doesn't matter that someone has probably noticed she's gone by now, and that they'll be searching high and low and all over the place for her for hours until someone comes up with the idea that maybe she's run off on them. Then they'll be radio-ing the Captain to let him know, and he'll be screaming and cursing and berating his poor crew for letting something like this happen.

Come tomorrow, it'll all be gone.

There's something terrifying about the notion. Terrifying and empowering. Now that Jane is out in the open, it all seems limitless. She can goes where she likes, eat what she likes, do what she likes, and at that'll happen is she'll wake up in bed the next morning, everything back to normal everyone else none the wiser.

Of course, the many  _horrible_  implications are not lost on her, but Jane doesn't dwell. There is no way she'd ever do those things. This whole thing was scary for sure, and Jane would be lying if she said she was the sweetest, most loving person who ever lived with no pent up anger over anything, but she has morals. The whole point of coming out here was to clear her head of the cobwebs.

Jane crosses the street at the light. People are chatting around her and she pays them no mind, except to note the steaming cups they drink from and the sign above them sports a faded painting of a white coffee cup. With the little bit of money she has on her, Jane buys herself the best cup of coffee she's ever had in her life. In retrospect, it was pretty mediocre in retrospect, but after the equivalent of three weeks living off of the watery instant brand they gave out on the island, this was practically gourmet. She drinks deeply, letting it warm her up, and looks out at the ocean water, which is suddenly beautiful to her. This must be the first time she's ever really stopped and thought about it, but she likes the ocean. It's a real change of pace from the deserts of New Mexico. How much time would it take to get to New Mexico from here, anyway?

Something in the back of her mind answers that question with another flat reminder that she should  _not_  be trying to take advantage of this. This is  _bad._  This is  _illogical_. This is an impossible situation, and she needs to find a way  _out_  of it. She'll have plenty of time to get back home when it's over and she  _won't_  be jettisoned back to the morning of May 4th at a moment's notice. That might have worked this morning, but now that Jane is here, alone in the open and feeling freer than ever before, all she can think is that it doesn't matter if she takes one day to herself.

She'll always have tomorrow.

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

Norway is not his first destination. It takes him four repeats to get that far.

He spends the rest of the 12th day scouring the city, going block by block, looking for one place with no noise, no people, and no debris littering the ground for rodents to chew upon.

He finds nothing.

Day 13 dawns with that same blank faced soldier. Loki thinks about asking the man for his name so he'll have something to associate the man with, but then he decides he doesn't give a damn and leaves for the surface without a word. After fending off the obligatory invasion attempt by that impetuous Other, Loki enters the fray of the city, this time with an actual destination in mind.

He goes to another part of the city, one quite different from the hovel that is Manhattan. There is still dirt everywhere, but at least the noise level is down and there is space to walk in. He learns the place is called 'Queens,' which is rather ill-fitting. Even a Midgardian royal should have the dignity to never set foot in such a place. He destination is a flat, two story white building, which is one of the nicer ones to be found, though it is still very dull to look at. Loki walks up to the door, which is currently wide open. A sign is tacked up to the wall beside it, listing 'Visiting Hours.' Now appears to be one of them.

Loki walks around family gatherings. This place is a home for the elderly and the invalid, and many of them are entertaining children and grandchildren today. Most of those in the latter category look like they'd rather be anywhere else. Loki thinks how amusing it would be if he revealed himself, if only long enough to give everyone a good scare and the children something fun to talk about. It would probably be the death of their elders, though. Most of these people look even older than that foolish old man who'd tried to stand up to him in Stuttgart.

One look around tells him that his target isn't here, not that he expected her to be. All her information was his to see thanks to the careful documenting SHEILD does on all it's former operatives. Peggy Carter is a founding member no less! Loki knows that she spent the next few years after Steve Rogers' supposed death fighting the war, only to return to her mother country when it was over and continue her work for the military there. She would eventually retire and marry, bearing no children but gaining a number of nieces and nephews. One of them even followed in her footsteps and joined SHEILD. Sharon Carter, he believes.

As for Peggy herself, she and her husband would move back to America later in their lives. He had been dead for twenty years, and she had checked herself into this facility five years ago, on recommendation from her doctors. She had several illnesses associated with old age, but mostly she was just growing tired. Loki couldn't say he blamed her. She lived a warrior's life and now her time was drawing near.

He finds her alone in her room, sitting in a deep red armchair, her back to him. He goes to stand in front of her, her eyes moving through him, focused on the large television in the corner. There is a closed book resting in her lap, held by a bony hand with raised purple veins and fingers that are never still. Loki doesn't need to look at the screen to know that he himself and Steve Rogers are on it. They've been replaying that fight since the night it happened. The time Loki spent in 'captivity' told him that. A few tears fall down Peggy Carter's face. Watching the man she probably never stopped loving fail to defeat him must be heart wrenching. Loki smirks, though he's not really feeling the satisfaction he'd like to.

He leaves shortly after that and spends the rest of the day wandering Queens. It was all getting far too boring.

So boring, in fact, that Loki doesn't even bother with Banner's women the next day. He doesn't want to be anywhere near New York either, so he goes to the farthest place he can think of, which ends up being a city called Los Angeles. He finds Tony Stark's home overlooking a beach. It's as audacious and self-indulgent as the man himself. Loki would destroy it if it wasn't completely pointless. The most he could get was Stark finding out about it before the day was up and losing his mind over it. Normally, this would be good for a passing amusement, but after everything, he can't even find it in him.

He's just feeling very frustrated in general this time around. The last time he felt like this, he beat Banner to a pulp and broke every bone in the man's weak human body. Sensing a possible repeat, Loki takes to the streets. This time, he goes without invisibility. This place is loud and dirty like Manhattan, but different enough that he isn't bothered. He just wishes he had some way to release all the tension rising up within him Maybe he should have gone to the fight today, if only for that single purpose.

Like it's a wish come true, a dark shadow appears before him. Loki is unconcerned by it. There is no magic or power of any sort coming off the man. He's just another weak Midgardian not worth Loki's time, albeit one whose choice in clothing and general demeanor is attempting (and failing) to prove otherwise.

"Hey man," he calls out. In his mouth is a lit cigarette, which muffles his speech a bit. "How's it going?"

Loki ignores him and walks past. The man isn't going to take that, though. He steps in Loki's path to stop him. More accurately, Loki chooses to stop walking so to accommodate him.

"Woah, not so fast there, Pretty Boy," the man says. Two of his similarly greasy and undesirable friends step out from the darkness to surround him. Loki wonders what took them so long. He had felt their presence long ago. Now it's just getting boring again.

"I don't know what you gentlemen are after," he says politely. "But you will find I have nothing on me of great interest, so I suggest you go and be a nuisance elsewhere."

The men burst out laughing, like the brain dead idiots they clearly are.

"Oh brother, listen to this Limey," the man in the middle says, before adopting a loud and greatly exaggerated, not to mention grossly incorrect, impression of Loki's speech. "Oh bloody 'ell I seem to 'ave lost my tea and crumpits. Cheerio govna'. Care for a fag and a ride on the trolley?"

His friends convulse with side splitting laughter, meaning they are either faking it for their friend's sake or even bigger fools than Loki thought. He gets the feeling he knows which it is. Valhalla above, he'd take the Warriors Three over this.

There comes a swishing sound like a blade, and then one shines before Loki's eyes, waved by the man in the middle.

"Yeah real funny," the man says, going 'serious' now. "And now that we've had a good laugh, how about you hand over all you money, _Mate_?"

Loki eyes the blade, small and thinner than it has any right to be. It's nothing like his daggers, which while small, can carve through stone if he wants them to. This whole situation is getting more annoying the longer it goes on, but at least now he has something to do.

"Is that a threat?"

The man pulls out his cigarette and blows a puff of smoke in Loki's face, then drops it. His friends snicker some more.

Well, haven't  _they_  all just made a big mistake?

The man's next threat dies in his throat as magic pulses in the air. His fingers curl around the space where the knife was mere seconds ago. It must be cold, because he's starting to shiver. Loki feels the weight of the weapon and scoffs disgustedly. To call it amateurishly forged would make a mockery of amateurs everywhere.

"As I thought. You three wouldn't last a fraction of a second in a  _real_  battle."

He snaps the metal between his fingers, the pieces falling uselessly to the ground. The three men look ready to void themselves. Loki gives a wicked grin.

It's lucky he put a silencing spell around the entire block beforehand. Otherwise the screams would've had the Midgardians running. When it's over, Loki walks away feeling much,  _much_  better.

On day 15, he decides he'd like to know what his enemies get up to when he's not around. It proves decidedly less fun than he would have hoped. Fury becomes, for lack of a better term, furious with each passing hour that his top notch agents fail to track him down. He is almost literally red in the face and there are so many veins popping out of his head, Loki thinks he might burst. It's a far cry from the emotional, yet professionally detached way he spoke with Stark and Rogers about their precious Agent Coulson's 'death' at his hands and all the values he believed in that they must now represent. It's all so terribly nauseating.

It's also pack of lies, as Loki later finds out. He finds the helecarrier's secret basement infirmary that only a select few agents know about. It's where Coulson's primary doctor is going over his chart with a couple of nurses and proclaiming that he'll be fully recovered in just a few months, and where Coulson himself is having his bandages changed and his dinner fed to him through a straw. How will Stark and Rogers take  _that_ , he wonders. He must commend Fury for his impeccable acting. The man almost had him fooled for a second there.

Once they're gone, it isn't long before word gets out that the big attack they were all dreading and preparing for doesn't look like it's going to happen. Stark finds not a trace of the tesseract at his tower. Like always, Loki has ordered it stored away and Selvig will likely be tinkering with it by now. Hours tick by and nothing changes. The others all meet up with Stark at his tower and try to come with some kind of explanation. Loki stands, unnoticed, in the corner of the room, watching the six of them drink from Tony's bar and trade ideas as to where Loki could be. Stark mostly makes jokes, which greatly irritates everyone until Barton snaps at him and the two almost come to trade blows before Rogers separates them. Banner and Romanov try to make everyone focus, while Thor is the quietest. He sits on the couch with a glass of something that will have no effect on him anyway, which must be why he hasn't touched it. His head is down, shading his features. Loki can still read him. He's as depressed as he is after a hunting trip gone wrong or a botched attack plan that's caused them to lose a battle with a great foe. When they were children, the only thing that could cheer him up was Loki challenging him to a duel, which Thor would usually win. That always boosted him right back up. Loki looks away before the taste in his mouth that the memory brings gets any more foul.

Stark gets up at one point to make a call and is gone for close to an hour. Loki sends a double after him and calls it back five minutes later, once it becomes clear that Stark is only speaking to his lover. When he comes back, Stark offers the five of them guest rooms to spend the night in. Rogers accepts on their behalf and dismisses them for the night. They will reconvene in the morning and discuss their next move. Now, when did he become the leader?

Loki doesn't return to his compound, but goes up to the roof and sits at the edge for hours, looking out at the artificial lights that draw away from the stars. Down below, it's as noisy as ever, and it barely lets up as the hours drag on. Stark wasn't exaggerating about that 'city that never sleeps' thing.

Next time around, he'll have to find someplace quieter.

**

_Jane Foster_

While the lights all go out, Jane lays herself out on a park bench, staring at the sky. It's freezing cold out, but the furry winter jacket she's just bought for three months worth of her salary, along with the one she already has keeps her plenty. She'd almost stopped herself from buying it because of the price. She'd have to be a complete idiot to spend that much on a coat. How would she feel when she didn't have enough to pay her bills at the end of the month...

Oh, right.

Her old coat is draped over her legs, which she has to be careful about moving around since any sudden movement could knock it to the ground, and then she'd have to get up to get it and reapply it. She doesn't even want to move right now.

Watching the stars has always had a very calming effect on her, and not just because of her career. She used to stay up late every night as a child, looking for constellations she learned about in school. Sometimes, her mother would come to wake her up for breakfast and find her curled up next to the window, all the way across the room from her bed. Even after she grew out of that, she still took time to look up at them every night. That was why she chose to set up her laboratory in Puente Antiguo. It had the best view of the night sky she'd ever seen.

This one was just as good, and she'd probably enjoy it a lot more if she were in better spirits. She's torn between sneaking out again tomorrow or not. She'd like to believe that getting it right today meant that she had learned all she needed to, and that she wouldn't make any more mistakes and get caught, but how sure was she really. This could have been a fluke for all she knows, a stroke of luck.

 _'There's only one way to find out,'_  says the voice of optimism in her mind.

She gives up there. No use arguing with that.

For the rest of the night, she sips a cup of hot chocolate and goes over the plan step by step until she can recite it by heart. What time isn't spent with that is dedicated to letting her mind wander. She thinks about Darcy, and how it might be a good idea to call her and see how she's doing. She had refrained from doing so before, once she realized the potential danger it could put them both in, but there was nothing stopping her now. She would also have to try and locate Erik's number. It had been a year since SHIELD carted him away and apparently changed his cell number too. Calling it just got her a 'this number has been disconnected' message. What were these guys, the CIA?

A handsome, blue eyed face crosses her mind and makes her jump. Where did he come from all of a sudden?

Come to think about it, Jane hasn't thought about Thor at all in the last few 'days'. Which is weird, because he used to come to her at least once a day before all this started. Or maybe it wasn't so weird, since back then, she'd been so busy working on creating a functioning Einstien-Rosen Bridge for the sole purpose of finding him and his homeworld that it was just inevitable. Now, it just wasn't as important to her anymore. And by relation, upsetting as it was,  _he_  wasn't as important to her anymore.

It might have something to do with the fact that he's alive and seems to have been able to return whenever he wanted, but didn't. All that does is make her think of all the stories she used to read about Gods coming down to earth and taking mortals as lovers, only to throw them aside when someone or something more interesting comes around and forget they ever existed.

And all  _that_  does is make Jane's head hurt because once again, she's doing that thing Darcy used to bug her about where she's thinking too much about too many different things while she's sleep deprived and she'd better just shut the hell up and go to sleep now Jane or so help me I will take away your coffee privileges for a week-

**

_Day 16_

' _ **Come on Eileen, oh I swear**_

_**At this moment, you mean everything!'** _

' _ **With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess**_

_**Verge on dirty** _

_**Ah come on Eileen.'** _

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

"Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

Jane rolls over in bed, pulling an extra pillow over her head and slamming it down a couple of times. She uses it to muffle her groans, then punches it a couple more times.

"God, I need a drink..."

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

"Sir, we're ready to go."

"Oh, shut up."

Down in the tunnels, he doesn't stop to sit because then he might not want to get back up until tomorrow. He's had it up to here with burrowing underground, and if he's to be trapped in this repetition he's not going to spend it here. Granted, he hasn't the desire to go back to any of the places he's spent it so far, but compared to here, a place all the magic in the nine realms couldn't make clean and presentable, they were a step below Valhalla.

He feels less like pacing than he does sitting, so he just stands in place. The indecisiveness alone is going to get to him soon. He needs to get out and go somewhere.  _Anywhere._  The only other option is to go ahead with the invasion and lose again. Yes, being carried back to Asgard a war criminal is bound to do wonders for him. It's been so cleansing thus far, hasn't it?

They would be en route by now. As the first one to arrive, Stark would probably be only another hour or so. Not enough time to get everything in place, even if he wanted to. It would be another trying day for them, as would tomorrow, and the next day, and every other day unless Loki gains some new motivation or finds a way out of this. It must be awful, he thinks, living the same day, doing all the same things, saying and hearing the same words over and over again for eternity. The only saving grace is that they don't have any idea it's happening. Loki would love to tell them, see the looks of horror on their faces when he proves it to them. They are just as much imprisoned as he is. No, that's wrong, they are even worse off. At least he's aware. He can influence things. He could destroy them all again and again in so many different ways and there's nothing they could do to stop him. Days ago, the prospect might have excited him. Now, he just gives it a side nod of acknowledgement and goes back to wondering what he's going to do today. He ignores the little 'Other-like' voice in his head that hisses he is losing his drive.

It comes to him like a brick to the temple that he  _had_  come up with something a long time ago. The night in which he seemingly won the day, he had gone to sleep with a certain woman in mind. She was a tiny thing, one he had never seen face to face and yet knew every inch of. Some might call her attractive, and on an objective level, Loki could accede to that. It was her actions that had marred her in his eyes. If it wasn't for her, Thor would never have returned as he had. He would have just died when he was supposed to and left Loki to eliminate Jotunhiem. He would still be a King, far far away from this realm, and hers would have been little more to him than a speck in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it was reaching to call her completely at fault, but she had factored in, whether she realized it or not.

SHIELD had done as poor a job of concealing her location as they had everyone else. The fact that their hiding place for her was the home country of those who worshiped Asgardians as deities in the first place is just wonderful.

Loki appears in a park behind a group of trees planted close together. He is already invisible anyway. He could have popped into the middle of a crowded street, and no one would even look up. His target is nearby, barely a mile away. Loki would have just gone straight to her, but he needs a few minutes of peace, and this little seaside village is the quietest place he's found so far. He crosses through the park. Couples walk hand in hand and small children climb trees and play in the sand. One little blonde headed girl catches Loki's attention. He dimly recalls the lost girl in the park who had approached him. She'd be looking for her father by now. Does she ever find him? Or does she freeze every night under a bridge, scared and alone?

Loki leaves the park and enters the street. He sends out a couple of doubles to find her. It's a tiny town with a sparse population, mostly used for fishing purposes. Within five minutes, he has her. She's in a pub off the coastline. It's mostly empty and she's the only woman in the vicinity. She's practically gift wrapped for him. What is SHIELD thinking, letting her wander around like this? He could snatch her up the moment it catches his fancy.

He makes his way to the pub. It's a dingy place a short ways away. He makes himself seen first, donning a more casual midgardian outfit than usual. What with the plain clothes most everyone wore, a suit would have been out of place, much as he preferred them. Instead, he's in a black shirt with matching pants and a dark green winter jacket. The furry inside itches, but at least he won't attract attention. He makes it to the pub without incident, pushes open the door and walks inside. It's a little more crowded than he thought, and unfortunately, also very very  _loud_. A few gentlemen seated by the entrance glance up at him over their drinks, only to go back to what they were doing a moment later. Other than that, no one looks up. These same people whose ancestors used to call him 'God'.

But that's of no concern to him, because he can see her. She is up at the front of the bar, her hair a tangled mess held back in a shoddy bun. Little strands stick out everywhere, as Loki sees when he gets closer. Had she even bothered to brush it this morning? Her clothes aren't in much better shape. There were dirt stains and damp spots all over the bottom of her shirt and the seat of her pants. She leans over the bar, running her finger over the rim of a glass of beer while she speaks to the half interested bartender in low tones.

Loki pauses to listen in, but as soon as the word 'Thor' passes her lips, he stops caring. Stupid girl  _would_ be hung up on him. He'd have to tell her all about Thor and his womanizing ways and how the odds of him coming to save her from him or anything else that might attack her were practically nil. The look of pain and horror on her face would be so very sweet.

Loki closes the distance between them. She hasn't heard him approach. How very surprised she's about to be. Loki puts a gentle hand on her shoulder and Jane Foster turns. Their eyes meet.

"Good afternoon."

**

"So I decided this morning that I should definitely come back into town, because I'm still feeling really stressed and I needed something to drink. Not that it's helping me..."

Jane pauses to breathe. The bartender doesn't look up from cleaning a glass, but then he hasn't looked at her once since handing her a beer. If she hadn't chosen to seat right next to the sink, she doubts he would even be here.

"Really? That something else," he says. His English is broken, but passable, and also a blessing in disguise because if he understood all of her story instead of just half, he'd probably have had her carted away in a white van by now.

"All I don't get," he goes on, putting down the clean glass and picking up a new one. "Is why then don't you have drink? It just sit there cold while you talk."

Jane grabs it and takes a swig just to spite him. The liquid burns her mouth, more than a beer should, and she puts it right back down. The bartender doesn't see her do it, but he must hear the clinking of the glass because he snorts.

"Forgive me if I'm not drowning my sorrows like a normal person," Jane snaps, "but I'm not exactly in a normal situation here."

"Yes yes," the bartender answers, his smile humorous.

"I mean, putting aside the whole repeating day thing, where would I even be right now if hadn't happened?  Today is the 16th repeat, so it's been over two weeks since it all started-since the first attack-and I know there would have been a lot of rebuilding to do and memorials to be held and all sorts of things that are way more important than my love life."

She goes to take another drink and then stops herself midway.

"I'd just like to hear from him once, you know?  Even if it's for five minutes over the phone, assuming he's learned how to use one by now.  He's a smart guy, I bet he'd pick it up fast.  That's really all I want.  Is that so much to ask?"

"Yes yes," the bartender says again. At this point, Jane doesn't even care anymore that he's not listening.

"For over a year, it was all about bringing him back. That's the only reason SHIELD gave a damn about me or my research. If it wasn't for him, I'd still be alone in New Mexico with homemade equipment, chasing thunderstorms."

She slumps over miserably.

"And now I find out that all my work and all my breakthroughs and  _everything_  else have all been for nothing.  He's come back, and I didn't even know until I saw it on the news.  I mean, am I being unreasonable?  Because he's trying to save the world, and it's not like we had some passionate love affair in the first place.  We only ever kissed one time before he left. I just thought maybe we had something there.  Does he even know where I am right now?  Like, is he planning to come see me when it's all over?  Because they always win the fight- they always win.  There should be nothing stopping him.  Assuming tomorrow ever comes, he should come and find me.  I should at least get that damn phone call I was talking about!"

"Mm-hm..." 

"But I have this awful feeling that I'm not even going to get that. He's just going to leave once again when it's over.  He probably thinks I don't know he's here." She forces herself to take another sip. A small one. "And then I think 'Wow, really Jane? You're inexplicably living the same day over and over again and all you can think about is your almost romance with Thor?' But you know, I wasn't thinking about it, for a long time now.  It's only just hit me after sixteen days."

"Ah, good work ethic."  The bartender grins at her.

"I only remembered last night, when I was half asleep on a park bench.  Now, he's all I can think about, and  _I don't need this_.  I  _really_  don't need this.  I need to shut this whole thing out so that I don't completely lose my mind before I can figure out a way out of this.  I just... I need to do something.  I need to get all this off my shoulders.  All the worries and all the insecurities... I just need to do one crazy thing that I would never normally do so that it's all gone and I can focus.  I mean, is that unreasonable, too?  No, don't answer that.  I am stuck in a time loop, I'm all alone in this, and I'm only human.  I think I deserve to be a little unreasonable!"

"Absolutely!" the bartender exclaims right back. It's the most alive thing he's said to her all night, and yet she still feels like she's being babied. It's a damn good thing for this guy that she never lets it get to her.

"So what would you do, if you were me?" she asks him, sitting back down.

The bartender pretends to think and shrugs his shoulders. "If I were you... I think I find someone nice and ah... make a little love, as you say. Best stress relief there is."

It was meant as a joke, and it wasn't particularly funny to Jane, but she smiles anyway.

"Oh yeah, with who? You?"

The bartender, a balding man of perhaps fifty with crows feet and a noticeable paunch, laughs heartily.

"Would love to, but ah..." he raises his left hand and fingers a gold band. "Happy as is. Don't worry dear, you are very lovely. You find someone easy. Just be careful. Some will say anything to get in good with you."

"You don't need to tell me that," Jane snorts. She had rarely gone out drinking with her friend in college precisely for that reason. And also because her and hard alcohol had never really seen eye to eye. "I have this one friend back at the observatory. She would have told me to do the same thing."

"Smart girl," says the bartender.

Jane rolls her eyes and begins running her finger along the rim of her glass to give it something to do. "Yeah, only she'd specify that I should sleep with his  _brother_ , which is never gonna happen."

Somewhere behind her, the front door opens with a creak. It's happened several times now, so Jane doesn't look back, even when the newcomer approaches.

"But I might as well, right? Sleep with a random guy, I mean," she pauses to laugh. "Picture Thor coming back only to find me in bed with someone else. You know, assuming he gives a fuck. 'Oh, I'm sorry Thor. I just needed someone more reliable and this bar guy seemed like a good bet. I've even known him longer than you.  _Four_  full days! You understand, right?"

She continues to snicker to herself, all the way through the dark shadow creeping up behind her that causes the bartender to move away. She has no time to ask where he's going, because a hand comes to rest on her shoulder, and instinctively, she turns.

Bright blue eyes overtake her vision, and a smooth voice speaks.

"Good afternoon."

Jane blinks up at him, the keyword in that statement being 'up'. Whoever this guy is, he is ridiculously tall, even with her just sitting. It's not uncommon for Jane, being as short as she is, but this guy seems to exude an air that he's bigger than you'll ever be. He is dressed almost all in black except for his unzipped green coat. He's skinny too, doesn't look like he has much muscle on him, but she could be wrong. His clothes don't tell very much. His hair is black and shoulder length, kept away from his face by some kind of gel product. His aristocratic features make him look woefully out of place in this little sailor's bar. Not that she exactly blends in either. As he smiles down at her, possibly trying to look intimidating, but if so, having picked the wrong girl entirely, Jane can't help but notice something very familiar about him. It comes to her right away who he reminds her of, which is either very unfortunate or very fortunate for him.

"Hello sir," she says evenly. "You wouldn't happen to be Thor's brother, Loki, would you?"

A ghost of a frown flashes across the man's face. Whatever he expected her to say, that wasn't it, but Jane can't be bothered to concern herself. She'd just like an answer, thanks.

"And what if I am?" he asks.

Jane's eyebrows go straight up. "So, you are?"

The man considers that for a moment, then gives a coy smile.

Aha, okay then.

The bartender was right after all: some guys will say  _anything._

Well, granted, she did most of the talking, but it wasn't her fault if this guy decided to run with it.

Jane sends a meaningful glance at the bartender, who eyes her and her companion and smirks knowingly. He points to the dimly lit hallway with doors lining either side. He mouths 'first on the left,' and Jane answers with a nod. She gets up, leaving her barely touched drink for the bartender to deal with and fists the man's shirt, pulling at him.

"Let's go," she says.

He stays in place, and he's a lot more solid than she thought. She can't move him an inch.

"What are you doing?" he asks, sounding genuinely confused, which throws Jane for a loop.

"You know what I'm doing," she says, tugging harder. "Would you just come on and let's get this over with?"

Eventually, he must take pity on her and her sad attempts to move him (she  _knew_  she shouldn't have opted out of phys-ed in college) and starts walking. Jane leads him to the designated door. It is unlocked, and Jane pushes it open. The room inside is nearly bare, except for a moth eaten couch in one corner, and an old four poster bed in another. Next to it is a nightstand with an oil lamp doing it's very best to provide light. It's enough that Jane can examine the doorknob, and find a lock on the inside, but not on the outside. Excellent.

The man walks in behind her, looking over the room with obvious distaste. Jane shuts and bolts the door, stopping only to take a breath and calm her rapidly beating heart. Her voice of reason won't stop screaming at her what a bad idea this is. She silences it, but thinks maybe she should have waited a little longer to do something this stupid, until she was jaded enough that the damn thing wouldn't bother her anymore.

Oh well. No turning back now.

Jane faces the man, who looks questioningly down at her. God, he is too tall. He's not doing anything yet either, just looking at her with that same little smile on his face, baring down like he's about to eat her.

"Well, I can't say I expected this," he says. "I know fear can drive one to do foolish things, but locking yourself in a room with me seems-"

Jane grabs him and pulls him down to her level, smashing her lips against his. The man goes completely still. With her eyes open, she can see his on her, looking wild and shocked and unnaturally blue. Were those color contacts or something? Nobody should have eyes that shade, it's creepy. With a muffled cry, he jerks away. 

"Woman, are you mad?"

Jane cries out in annoyance. "I should be asking you the same question.  Why did you bother coming over to talk to me if not for this?"

She doesn't wait for an answer, which is a good thing, because he doesn't look like he has one. She jumps and he catches her instinctively. Her lips brush his, more gently this time, sending a bolt of something straight through Jane from her head to her toes. He must feel it too, because he shudders against her and doesn't pull away this time. He doesn't do anything else either, so Jane begins losing her patience. She pushes his heavy coat aside, running her fingers up his stomach and chest and-  _whoa_ , was she ever wrong about him being skinny.

He remains motionless, causing Jane to pull away. She thinks for one horrible second that she's made a mistake, gone too far, misread his intentions entirely. Maybe he was just trying to ask her for the freaking time and now she's forcing herself on him. Why didn't he push her off already? Even if he hadn't apparently been forged out of steel, she wasn't exactly Xena. Jane moves away. He is staring deep into her eyes, not with fear or shock or revulsion or anything of the sort. Just with thoughtfulness, like she's some complex problem he's trying to solve. He never tries to leave, even though she has no way of blocking him. What the hell does he want?

"Look, I'm not drunk," Jane says. "I barely had two sips of a light beer and I'm not going to back out at the last minute, if that's what you're worried about. Okay?"

He studies her a moment longer.

"I just... can't imagine why you'd want this. With  _me_."

With him? What was that supposed to mean? Geez, for a guy trying to get laid, he sure has self-esteem issues. Why? She doesn't know. He's a handsome guy after all.

"I do want this," she says. "As long as you want this, I want this. Because I don't care anymore, alright,  _Loki_?"

She steps into his arms, and reaches up to meet his lips again. Before she closes her eyes, she sees his darken. He pulls her the rest of the way up. His lips are tender on hers, but they get harder by the second. His arms around her are insanely strong. Jane can barely move except to get closer to him, which is fine by her.

The next few hours are like a blur. Jane barely knows what's happening from the moment it starts to the moment it ends. They wind up on the bed at some point. His hands trail along her naked, heated body, so he must get her clothes off somehow. She doesn't recall taking them off herself. She doesn't recall taking his clothes off either, but she roams his naked body as he does hers and she runs her hands along lean but powerful muscles and licks a line along his neck while he's nibbling on hers. She can't even think straight anymore about anything. Her whole world for the moment is nothing but his hands and his tongue and his body pressing down on hers, and then at some point, he's inside of her, thrusting in and out, in and out, in and out. His pace is slow and torturous at first, but then he picks it up and he gets her to scream for him. They don't have any condoms, but STDs and pregnancy are the last thing Jane is worried about. They go more than once, at least three times, possibly more. Jane's lost count.

When it's over, she rests in his arms, breathing heavily while listening to his heartbeat. She tries to count the number of beats to give herself some form of coherency, but it's failing fast. Even now, all she can think about are his  _hands_  and his  _tongue_  and his _body_  and how that was without a doubt the most amazing sex she's ever had in her life. Not that this is saying much, since she's only been with two guys before and the last one was back in Grad school, but she has vivid memories of both experiences. They don't hold a candle to this.

She dimly remembers a moment when Thor was around, the night he carried a drunken Erik home to her trailer following an ill-conceived drinking contest. In his inebriated state, Erik had slurred:

"You know, I don't believe you're Thor, but you should be."

Jane nestles further into the man's chest, breathing in his scent and not for a second believing this is really Loki. But it's like Erik said: he really should be.

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

By the time Jane Foster's nodded off, Loki has regained all his energy and could get up and walk out whenever he wants. Or he could wait an hour or so until she's rested, rouse her and go for another round. His indecision over the matter has him just laying there motionless, listening to her snore. He's been doing a lot of that recently. Getting into impossible situations with no idea how to get out. He really isn't enjoying it.

But Jane Foster should feel honored, assuming she was actually to remember this tomorrow. Never in his long and illustrious lifetime has anyone ever left him so completely speechless. Not even the All-Father himself. He hasn't the faintest idea how Jane Foster has lived in the year since Thor left. She's either terribly wanting or an utter fool. He can think of no reason other than misplaced anger at Thor that would lead her to lay with him. Oh, she was not the first woman to throw herself at him, quite the contrary. It's just that on Asgard, no woman who was ever once Thor's would try it. They knew better.

What little Loki knows of Jane Foster tells him this is not her normal behavior. When he approached her in the pub, he expected shock mingled with confusion. It goes without saying he got neither of those. What he got instead... he doesn't know how to take this.

He eventually stops trying and lets himself rest. He feels something wet issue from Jane Foster's mouth and land on his skin and then he's out.

**

_Day 17: Jane Foster_

After falling asleep wrapped in a man's arms in a dingy cot with musty sheets, waking up in alone between much warmer, cleaner ones is a little jarring, even if Jane expected it. Waking up to the usual sequence of events is nothing. She makes an excuse for Jacobine anyway. She's going to need all day to think this one through.

That doesn't mean she doesn't want to talk to anyone, it's just that she has to wait until mid afternoon for the person she wants to talk to to wake up. It'll be morning for her when Jane picks up the phone, but she is undeterred. Being an early riser was the one good thing Jane could count on Darcy Lewis to be.

The phone rings six times before someone answers. Jane hears something crunching first.

"Good morning," Darcy's cheerful voice says. "You've reached Darcy Lewis! I am not available right now, as you've called me right in the middle of my nutritious breakfast of Peanut Butter Crunch and soon to be spoiled milk. Please try your call again later-"

"Hang up that phone and you can kiss those six credits goodbye," Jane says quickly.

Darcy bursts out laughing on the other end. "I'm just messing with you, Dude. I knew it was you."

Jane pulls the phone away and rolls her eyes, even though there's no way Darcy can hear her doing that.

 _'You haven't changed a bit,'_  Jane thinks.

"So, what's up? Why the sudden break in radio silence?"

Jane thinks for a moment. She thought she knew before making the call what she was going to say. Now, she's drawing a blank.

"I... just needed to hear a familiar voice."

"Getting cabin fever already, huh?" Darcy says.

" _No._  Why does everyone think that..."

The last part was said softly, but Jane thinks Darcy probably heard it anyway.

"Well, I know you wouldn't call for no reason, so come on, what's up?"

Jane waits a beat, during which time she decides that as long as she's talking to Darcy, there is nothing she can do but get straight to the point.

"Okay. Basically, I sneaked of the Island yesterday on the ferry that delivers supplies once a week. Then I went drinking at a pub where I met this guy, who I proceeded to have sex with several times in one of the back rooms."

"Was he hot?"

"Are you serious? After everything I just told you,  _that_  is your biggest concern."

"Well Jane, it's extremely important," Darcy says seriously.

Jane takes the phone away again, this time to run her hand over her face before she answers.

"He was... attractive, yes."

"And was he good?"

"I enjoyed myself."

Darcy sputters slightly. "I'm confused, are we still talking about your one night stand or some opera you saw afterwards?"

"Just because I don't use slang and dirty language to describe it doesn't mean it wasn't good," Jane says.

She hears chewing on the other end.

"Yeah, but Jane, you once made out with a friggin Thunder God. Your standards should be ridiculously high, way too high to sleep with some random bar dick unless he's a male model or something."

 _'Oh, he could have been,'_  her traitorous mind says as it pulls up images of her hands running along his body. Jane's cheeks start to heat up involuntarily. Meanwhile, Darcy is still going on about all the qualities of any non-Thor person she should be going for. Something about chiseled abs and a piercing gaze and other trashy romance novel terms that Jane didn't think Darcy knew.

"Look, I only  _kissed_  Thor, Darcy," Jane loudly interrupts. "A kiss, nothing more."

"I'm just saying, you should go for no less than equal to or greater than Thor. Otherwise, you'd be doing yourself one hell of a disservice."

Just how much greater than someone like Thor is there, she wants to ask.

"You're beginning to sound just like Hilda," she says instead.

"Who's Hilda?"

"Another scientist working here. We've been becoming friends."

"Just don't go trying to replace me up there."

Jane grins despite herself. "Darcy, that's impossible. You are irreplaceable."

"Damn right!"

They laugh together for a few seconds, until Darcy's tapers off and, after a pause, she curses.

"Oh goddammit. Sorry, Jane, I have to go. My first class starts in twenty minutes and my professor is like this ridiculous punctuality nut. Call me tomorrow, okay?"

Jane's smile fades and something catches in her throat.

"Sure, if I can."

Jane hangs up feeling only a little better, and a lot more restless.

It's going to be a _long_  day.

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

Loki goes ahead with the invasion today because he wants to talk to Thor. There's a sentence he never thought he'd say, much less think. The truth of it remains. Today, he wants nothing more than to be face to face with Thor and to converse with him.

He finishes up with Stark quickly, leaving a double to take the first attack in his place. He stands beside Selvig as he works, until Thor finally arrives, shaking the foundation with his hard landing.

"Loki!"

Loki smirks and turns around.

"You know, Thor," he shouts before Thor can tell him to shut the machine down. "I don't think you realize just how little an impact you made the last time you were on this rock. Take Jane Foster for one. When I went to her last night, she hadn't a single thought of you to spare and she was more than eager to bend to my will, if only after I bent to hers. I had no idea she was such a vixen in the bedroom, and were you aware that she screams upon her completion?"

The look on Thor's face is priceless.

And completely worth the face full of Mjonir Loki gets seconds later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus, Loki and Jane have finally made each other's acquaintance.
> 
> Oh boy, did they ever.
> 
> So now that they've met, all that's left is to get them aware of each other. It won't be long now, so stay close.


	7. Day 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to first thank everyone who's reviewed and favorited so far. I have not gotten this much feedback on a story in a long time, and after only six chapters?
> 
> It's the sex scenes isn't it? That's all you care about, don't deny it!
> 
> Anyway, thank you all so much. You are part of what makes this story so fun for me to write. I love you! *hugs*

After finishing up her call with Darcy, Jane had packed up her stuff and left the room. She made it just in time to meet up with Dr. Ahlberg in the lab. Her on–the-fly excuse that she'd woken up with a headache and cured with Tylenol and rest went over much better than expected.

"Just get to work, Ms. Foster," Dr. Ahlberg had said before someone else pulled her away.

Jane followed the formula as best she could. Another few loops and she'd have it down pat. It doesn't even bother her to think like that anymore. There's no sense in denying that she's going to be stuck like this for a while. Trying to fix it is bound to take ages for an ordinary person like her. Much as she wishes there was at least one more person who could help her out, there is no point in dwelling. How could she even wish something like this on another person anyway?

She mostly stuck to herself during lunchtime, close enough to Hilda and Jacobine that she could listen in on their conversation and smile and laugh in all the appropriate places so they don't suspect anything is wrong.

"I'd never had a sip of alcohol before that night, it was probably the craziest thing I ever did, but I lost the bet and I'm not one to go back on my word."

"Hmmm… and all you had were a couple of beers. Pfft- that is not wild, my friend."

"Well, we can't all be as daring as you."

"Yes, and you never will be, much as I hate to break it to you."

Adorable.

4:45 came with a literal crash of Whathisname, the out of breath intern.

"You- you three- you have to come- to the TV room- you have to see this!"

Jane couldn't even be bothered to run this time.

It almost cost her her usual seat, but luckily the person who'd taken it decided to go comfort a friend of his who was near tears. He never came back again.

She watched the fight as discerningly as possible. She caught the same old glimpses of Ironman and Captain America and Thor (who sent something unpleasant dropping in her stomach). Weird monsters here, the giant green guy here and the woman on the flier there. Business as usual. Loki was the same as ever, as far as she could tell. She'd been momentarily distracted when the empty cup of water she'd taken upon entering slipped from her fingers. When she looked back up, Loki's back was to her. She didn't think much of it then. She's just going to have to be more careful tomorrow.

She's going to be a lot more serious from here on in. There's no need to laze around anymore. She's had two and a half weeks almost to come to terms with everything. She's found a reliable method to leave if she starts to feel too suffocated (reliable enough anyway), and for now, that's all she needs. She might even meet her new friend again someday.

All she can do now is plunge in headlong. Truthfully, she shouldn't have needed so much time to get this far, but she doesn't like thinking about that. It makes her feel like a slacker. She's never slacked off on anything, not since high school. This is much bigger than a single overdue term paper, but the point still stands.

Jane slinks away from the party as it's starting up. She almost isn't fast enough this time. She hears Hilda call out her name when she's at the door. Jane ignores her and runs out. Hilda shouts after her once, and then that's it. Nobody follows her back to her room. She spends an hour writing down every second of the battle she can remember, down to the last detail. It isn't much, she knows. News coverage is incredibly limited and it's not even in English. She should take some time to sit down and learn the language one of these days; whatever that means anymore. She gets to Thor's appearance, notes its brevity, and then tries to move on before she has a chance to linger. Unwittingly, she sees his stupidly charming grin as he kisses her hand and scrunches her eyes tight. She tries to drown it out with something else, anything else.

Dark hair and green eyes and long fingers running along her body as he kisses her neck and…

No. No. Not that.

Jane gulps down what remains of her bottled water and then throws it at the garbage can next to the door. It misses by several inches.

She pulls stray bits of hair out of her face. There's nothing around to tie it back with and she doesn't feel like getting up, so she just pushes it all over her shoulders and leaves it at that. She picks up the pen and writes. She starts at a point that doesn't involve Thor in any way and spends the next few minutes recalling Ironman and the redheaded woman and the pandemonium that ensued once the power went out. She ends it at the video coming back to show the exhausted heroes, Thor included. She glosses over him and focuses on the rest. She only knows Tony Stark because he's a household name the likes of Bill Gates or Santa Claus. The green man rings a few bells too, as does Captain America, whom she's starting to remember from an old movie poster in her parents room. That was back when her father was around, so she couldn't have been more than a toddler. She's going to have to learn as much about all of them as she can. She still has no idea if their battle and her repeating days are related, but seems far too precise to just be a coincidence.

_The biggest question after 'Why is this happening?' is 'Why is this happening to me?' It is clear that none of the Avengers are aware of the repeating day, even though this repeating day spans at least the distance between Norway and America. That their battle with Loki is today must mean something. But then, why not one or all of them? Why am I the only one aware? Other than three days with Thor, I have no connection to any of them and no way to contact them. In my limited amount of time, there is little to no chance of me making it back stateside, and even if I could, how would I get to them? What could they even do?_

_For the time being, I must assume that these events are unrelated. The fact that the battle has repeated thus far without changes indicates that no one on either side is aware. Still, I can't shake the feeling that there is a connection._

She stops there and puts down the pen. She remembers that she hasn't been around to watch at least half the battles so far, but that shouldn't matter. Only in that if she had been watching it all this time, maybe she'd have memorized it by now and wouldn't have to anymore. She's really not much looking forward to having to sit through it time and time again, even though she knows she has to. This is her research now. No more star gazing or Foster Theories until this is solved. No more jumping the ferry or little Oceanside villages. No more bars and bar guys and hands and tongue and body and-

"No, no,  _no_!"

Jane growls and slaps both heads over her head. She falls down in bed, just missing the wall by a hair and landing on the soft pillows. She tries not to, but she can't stop it now. She's feeling him all around her again, her body tingles with the memory. Whether she closes her eyes or keeps them open, he is always there, gazing at her with lust and desire the likes of which she's never seen before in a man.

"Come on," Jane moans, running her hands slowly down her face. "It was supposed to get rid of the stress, not make it  _worse_."

She rolls over, her legs getting tangled in the sheets. She hardly moves for the rest of the night until she falls asleep. Even that's way too difficult. She feels warm all over, phantom sensations of fingers and hot breath at the nape of her neck permeate for hours.

**

_Day 18_

**_'Come on Eileen, oh I swear_ **

**_At this moment, you mean-'_ **

Jane grabs the clock radio- she needs not change positions to do it- and lobs it across the room. The cord is jerked out of the wall on one end, and partially out of the radio. It smashes against the wall, popping the screen off, but leaving it otherwise undamaged, and silent.

There's the knocking on the door now.

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

Dr. Ahlberg walks off, and Jane counts down the seconds until Jacobine's arrival, announced, as always, by an enthusiastic knock.

"Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

The clock radio issues a loud whine that sounds like Kevin Rowland's voice going through a garbage disposal. It's obviously more broken than it looks and has a backup battery. Jane notes that in the back of her mind.

"What was that?" Jacobine asks. She tries the doorknob, which is jammed, and then calls out again. "You alright in there, Jane?"

"Yes, Jacobine," Jane answers as she gets out of bed. "My radio needs new batteries. I'll fix it tonight."

"If you say so."

Jane picks a periwinkle shirt today.

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

Loki has just finished counting the number of bricks on the wall. There are five hundred and sixty three within his line of sight. That's two minutes successfully wasted.

Not for the first time, he wishes he had a clock of some kind. He knows the time well enough from the position of the sun, but it's not specific. At least six hours have gone by since Thor dropped him in here. He's probably at some banquet welcoming him home by now. It must be a spectacular affair, even bigger than the one they held to celebrate his fall.

Rage simmers in Loki's stomach, until he relaxes against the bars and lets it go. He abandoned this realm when he fell. He had expected to die, but he had lived, and had far greater prospects elsewhere.

Had, indeed.

Loki sighs, long and loud. He really has to stop doing this to himself. One way or another, he is going to find a way out. He has to; there is not a chance in all the nine realms that this is happening for no reason. Something is causing it, or perhaps someone.

The question is how, and why.

What force or being could he have wronged so greatly that they would put him through such torment as this?

Loki laughs sardonically. He's going to be here for a while.

He hears something then, just outside his window. Voices build in volume, a laugh bursting forth. Normally, he would ignore it, but tonight it catches him by surprise. It really does. Not once in any of the last sixteen repetitions has anyone come close enough to the dungeons that he can hear them.

Loki goes to the window. He sees the grand gardens of Asgard just a small ways off, where noblemen and women in courtly attire admire the freshly grown flowers on the eve of their blooming. The Warriors Three are among them. Volstagg is happy and content with his usual supply of drumsticks. Meanwhile, Fandral woos a blushing young maiden who twirls a braid around her finger. Sif is a small ways off. She's in full battle regalia, her face pristine and her hair voluminous, and black as night. For a moment, it has an unnatural,  _golden_  shine to it, or is he just seeing things? She's leaning against a tree and watching Thor as he walks along, arm and arm with-

"Jane Foster?" Loki whispers.

She's close that he can see every inch of her face, glowing in a way that should not be possible for a mortal woman. She's dressed in noble finery, from the golden jewelry to the deep blue robes that adorn her shoulders. Thor leans to whisper something in her ear. She laughs and it booms. It's so loud, it's like she's standing right behind him.

Then there's a hand on his shoulder.

There's breath in his ear.

"Having fun?"

He whirls around.

**  
  
 _Day 18_

Loki's eyes snap open. He does and doesn't know his surrounding at first. He's definitely back where he started, underground on Midgard on the morning of his invasion, but wasn't he just in his cell in the middle of the night?

It comes back to him slowly that he'd fallen asleep almost immediately after Thor, who had carried him this time around because his legs were so badly broken, threw him headfirst onto the stone floor of his cell. He didn't wake up again.

"Sir?

Loki turns an eye on that soldier. He's waiting for an answer to the announcement Loki missed this time while he was lost in thought. He gets up and walks away.

"Not today," he says lazily. "Put it away, we'll do it another day."

"Yes, sir."

That's the end of that.

**

_Jane Foster_

Her notebook remains at her side all through breakfast and the morning meeting. It stays blank for now, but by tonight, the first ten or so pages will be chaos. It had come to her this morning, after she fended off Jacobine so she could get dressed slowly and in peace. Recording the events of the battle as it was going on seemed like the best thing to do at this juncture. It would doubtless come off strange to the people around her, assuming her note-taking could hold their attention better than the destruction of an entire city. Well, too bad for them. This whole desensitization thing was really taking hold of her fast.

As always, she has nothing to say about anything, be it small talk with Hilda and Jacobine or prep work with Dr. Ahlberg. Nobody bats an eyelash at her, she's basically a non-entity. Thank goodness for that.

It's given her a lot of time to think, and her observatory time is spent sitting on the bench in the corner looking anywhere but up. She flips the blank pages of her notebook. Yesterday, she tore the top corner off the second sheet by mistake. Now it's fully intact. Seeing it sends a rush through Jane's body. Its undeniable proof that this is real and not just some crazy delusion born of being locked up with no information for too long. She fingers the page and almost rips it anew. She snaps the notebook shut, it stays off to the side, untouched until it's time for her to go. Only the first page has been marked, with a hasty, less detailed account of her day so that she can watch the clock when the time of the battle draws near. At 4:45 pm, the intern will burst in and at 6:20 pm, the world will be free to live another day. Every second of that hour and thirty five minutes in between needed to be ingrained into her skull. It's the only lead she's got, and it requires her full, undivided attention. There can be no wandering thoughts of any meaningless one night stands she may have had with random strangers in the past few 'days.' No matter how incredibly hot and amazing it may have been.

The clock currently reads ten minutes to eleven, which means she'll have to leave soon. Quiet time alone is not the reprieve it used to be, and Jane is quite suddenly looking forward to getting the same old tired dialogue. It gives her something to think about. Jane would take any sort of distraction right now, and not just from the repeating day. Whenever she's not thinking of that, her normally sensible and scientific mind is dominated by thoughts that go straight between her legs and make the rest of her feel like it's on fire. It's all nothing but that face and those eyes and hands and tongue and body again and again and-

"Five more hours until it's time, and I need to make sure to grab a fresh pen from the lab and sit closer to the door so I can leave faster when the intern shows up. Also, it might be good to move when the power goes out just before it comes back so that I have an easy exit when the party starts and nobody, Hilda or otherwise can drag me back in. The best thing I can do in the meantime is just go about the day as normal and not speak much unless spoken to. I already know all the experiments I'm assigned to front and back so that shouldn't be a problem…"

Jane goes on like this until the security guard taps on the door and tells her in heavily accented English that her time is up and she needs to clear out. She's mostly come down at this point, though she suspects her cheeks might still be a little flushed or she's got sweat on her brow, because the security guard gives her an unusually long look as she's leaving. Her troubles are quelled for the moment, and she's proceeding straight ahead with her head held high and an impenetrable shield around her that keeps out the unessential.

Five more hours until it all starts again.

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

Afternoon sees Loki back in Central Park. He's just been walking along, first invisible, then not. Somewhere around noon, his stomach lets out a whine, reminding him that he hasn't eaten anything since the day before the repetition began. It's not the first time he's gone so long without sustenance. He suspects that, as with physical injuries, it doesn't matter what he ingests, his body will return to its previous state as each new repeat begins. He could spend what amounted to years in this endless circle and never let a single morsel pass his lips.

He goes in search of food anyway. There are several fine looking establishments nearby, but he's questioned the quality of Midgardian food since it became clear that, at least in this city, their diets consisted mainly of twisted dough covered in salt. Why else would there be ten different peddlers offering them everywhere he looked? The only thing he sees almost as often are eateries that boast enormous yellow signs shaped like an M. He doesn't know what it stands for, but something about it makes his chest feel vaguely like its burning. Any place that elicits that can't be worth it at all.

He eventually gives up and takes to wandering the park again. It's irritating a place as ever, especially when he makes the mistake of passing a certain bench beneath a tall green lamp at the exact wrong time.

"Daddy! Daddy! Where are you?"

The pigtailed little girl veers around the legs of uncaring adults, screaming her weak little heart out. Loki eyes the bench he'd sat on the first time, this time completely empty; no one at all for her to bother. What would the child do now?

"Daddy!"

She barrels straight at him, almost running into his legs until Loki side-steps her. She skids to a halt and turns.

"Mister, wait! Have you seen my Daddy?"

Loki rolls his eyes and keeps walking. The girl calls after him but doesn't follow, and soon her cries fade away.

He exits the park and cloaks himself again, so that it doesn't create a scene when he transports himself elsewhere. After jumping from place to place, Loki finally settles on a beach he knows to be somewhere outside the city of Manhattan. It's still close, but far enough that he no longer feels the need to kill something.

There are only five or six people on the sand and no one in the water. Loki is wearing more than all of them combined. He'd stuck out like a sore thumb if he was visible. Several feet away is a couple locked in a passionate embrace, so focused on each other that he could probably appear to them in full regalia and they wouldn't notice. Loki scoffs and bypasses them; he's not too fond of how they remind him of events just two repeats ago.

The truth is, he's been thinking of Jane Foster off and on since he woke up this morning. Her presence in that dream really threw him for a loop. The dream itself was of no concern to him. He rarely had them, but when he did, they were often as vivid and detailed as this one had been. It was simply how his mind worked, and nothing and no one could possibly know that more than himself.

 _Having fun?_  Oh, what amusing little quips his subconscious mind came up with. Why yes, thank you, this repetition has by far been the time of his life!

So what, then, of Jane Foster? His first thought is that their night together triggered it, but that's just absurd. He has spent nights with countless women in his long lifetime, enough that it made Stark's little line of conquests look positively meager. True, Jane Foster was more than just a common wench; she was the woman who had helped ruin everything for him by making Thor a 'better' man. He cared more for the dirt under his shoes than her. Under any other circumstances, she would have been dead on the floor before she could even open her mouth to ask his name. What in Vahalla's name had she been doing in his dreams?

Nothing about their meeting had made sense anyway. How had she known who he was, and so quickly? Thor may have told her about him, but to know him by face when they'd never before been face to face? There is no way she could've gotten that accurate a description.

Question after question hounds him from there. Why had she been so eager to lay with him? Why hadn't she been even the least bit afraid when she outright told him she knew who he was? What on earth had gone on between her and Thor to make the year of absence so unbearable that she would stoop to something as petty as this? Why, when she was supposed to be one of Midgard's most brilliant minds, would she act in such a reckless way, knowing all that he could have done to her?

Most importantly, why did Loki care so must about all this that he would see her in his dreams?

He looks around one more time. The amorous couple from before appear to have moved to a changing tent, which rocks suggestively side to side. Without really thinking about it, Loki vanishes, leaving not even footprints in his wake.

He ends up in that same little Norwegian park. He glances around with disinterest and leaves. The next place he finds himself at is in front of Jane Foster's pub. She won't be there yet, but if he remembers the time of their meeting correctly, she'll be along shortly. He walks inside, still invisible, moving past chattering, inebriated sailors who couldn't possibly see a foot in front of their faces. Loki stops at the end of the bar, at the seat Jane Foster had occupied and would soon again. How fun it would be to wait until she was right there and then let her see him. Poor thing would probably have a heart attack. It barely brings a smile to his face, but at least it keeps him distracted from wondering what he's even doing here. If only he had something better to do.

Loki sits at the second to last seat and waits.

**

_Jane Foster_

The time is now 4:40 pm. Jane has abandoned her usual spot in the back for a table closer to the door. One step and she'll be out; she might as well not even wait for the intern today. The trade-off for her planning is that now she's smack in the middle of Hilda and Jacobine. She hates to say they're started to really grate on her nerves. It's not their fault that they've had this asinine little discussion seventeen times in a row. They don't know any better.

"I'd never had a sip of alcohol before that night, it was probably the craziest thing I ever did, but I lost the bet and I'm not one to go back on my word."

"Hmmm… and all you had were a couple of beers. Pfft- that is not wild, my friend."

"Well, we can't all be as daring as you," Jane supplies under her breath.

"You say something, Jane?"

She jumps a little, cursing herself.

"Ah- no," she says quickly. "Just talking to myself."

This has the opposite effect she was hoping for, and in retrospect, she probably should have thought of something better. Jacobine gives her a searching stare while Hilda shakes her head disapprovingly.

"Talking to yourself is a sign of insanity Jane," she says, wrapping an unwanted arm around her. "I knew we shouldn't have left you out."

"Oh, but I'm fine, I-"

"No buts," Hilda says. She waves her index finger in Jane's face. "Now then, how about you tell us a crazy story of your own, Jane?"

Jane would love to dissuade her, whatever it took, but now Jacobine is leaning closer, looking like a little kid at a puppet show. They are on the edge of their seats, and knowing they're only doing it for her benefit changes nothing.

"Well?" Jacobine says.

"Weeeell?" Hilda prompts in her ear.

Jane sneaks a glance at the digital clock on the wall. It's 4:42.

Screw it.

"I've got a really good story," she says in monotone. "First of all, that thing you guys were talking about earlier? About Jacobine? You've actually had that conversation seventeen times. The truth is, we're all stuck in a big time loop where I'm reliving the same day over and over again and no one else know about it, including you two. In fact, I've snuck off the island several times on the supply ferry and one time, I even slept with some guy I met at a bar, just for the hell of it."

She finishes as flatly as she started, then leans back and listens to the ticking of Jacobine's wristwatch. The two of them are dumbstruck. Ever so slowly, their eyes turn to each other… and then they laugh. They laugh far too loud when in such close proximity with Jane, and now her ears are ringing.

"Oh- Oh that is a good one, Jane," Hilda says.

"I'll say," Jacobine is a little less composed, but still understandable. "Did you just come up with that?"

Jane growls under her breath. "No, I've had  _plenty_  of time."

They laugh again and Hilda gives her a one armed hug. Jane thinks she might also get a sloppy kiss on the cheek, and she's glad when it doesn't happen and Hilda pulls away. Getting all that lipstick off would have been a pain. Hilda and Jacobine never quite relax again, getting as far as light snickers that linger even as Hilda is pausing to take a well-needed gulp of bottled water and then juts out her chin.

"It's funny you should mention the ferry. I've been thinking about jumping that thing on the really hectic days since I got here. I guess great minds really do think alike, huh?"

"More like reckless," Jacobine says. Her grin hinders any possible attempt at chastising anyone. "That's an awful idea to promote."

Hilda rolls her eyes. "It's all in good fun, Jacobine, just a joke. Right, Jane?"

"Wrong."

That doesn't process right away. Hilda is sending a smug look Jacobine's way when it hits, and then Jane is the center of attention again. Though her inner voice is screaming at her how incredibly stupid this is, not to mention dangerous, Jane can't bring herself to care. All of a sudden, she's completely numb to everything, an outsider looking in. It doesn't matter what she says to them, she could tell them her whole life's story if she wanted to. Then, she could tell it to them all over again tomorrow and no one would know the difference. It's like being on a whole other plane of existence, all by herself.

"Wrong," she says again, getting up. She feels how wide her eyes are. From the way Jacobine raises her arms to her chest, almost defensively, she must look pretty scary right now. Something about that invigorates her. "Everything I just said is true. You'll see what I mean about thirty seconds from now. An intern is going to rush in here and tell us to follow him to the TV room, where we're going to watch news coverage of an alien attack on New York City led by the Norse God, Loki."

Dead silence follows; it's so thick that it even penetrates Jane's newfound unflappability, if only just. She is not unable to maintain eye contact, even if her friends are most unwilling to look at her for longer than a couple of seconds. They seem to be conversing with their eyes, trying to quietly figure out if Jane's crazy enough to attack them if they try to run. At least, that's what she assumes.

"Uh… Jane, are you sure you're feeling alright?" Hilda finally asks.

In response, Jane looks down at her wrist, which is devoid of a watch, but she knows the time anyway.

"Ten more seconds," she says.

"Okay Jane, knock it off," Jacobine says. "You're starting to scare me."

Jane snorts openly.  _'Jacobine, you only think you're scared right now. Just you wait.'_

Five more seconds. Jane's body seizes up with anticipation. How will Hilda and Jacobine take knowing that she's been telling the truth all along? She's about to find out, and there's something exciting to it. The intern will burst through the door and set everything into motion again in three… two… one…

Jane looks at the door.

The air goes quiet.

There is no one there.

Jane blinks once or twice, biting her lip awkwardly. She already knows that what she's seeing is for real, but she's as of yet not too worried. Something shifts behind her and Jane waves dismissively behind her. Jacobine gasps softly. Jane pays it no mind.

"It's not really on the dot," she explains. "Just wait a couple of seconds, he'll be here."

" _Who_  will be here, Jane?" Hilda sounds annoyingly wary.

"The intern. I already told you two this," Jane's having a hard time keeping her voice down. This waiting and counting down is starting to get to her. It gets any worse and she may have to take tomorrow off. "Just give it another couple of seconds."

Jane stands before the door looking out. The half window shows an empty hallway, save for a few scientists walking in different directions and discussing trivialities amongst themselves. She thinks about opening the door a crack so she can hear him running before he appears which will be any second now.

Another couple of doctors walk by. Jane thinks she sees Dr. Ahlberg among them. Any second now…

"Jane."

Any second now…

"Jane."

Any second…

"Jane!"

Any-

"JANE!"

Hilda snatches her up. Jane is unprepared and almost smacks her friend across the face. She's about to give Hilda a piece of her mind when the taller woman points at the clock. Jane looks at it and feels like she's been dowsed in ice water.

It's 4:46.

Then the clock advances one more minute, as if to taunt her.

4:47 now.

Its 4:47, and nothing has happened.

"What?" Jane says. She shakes her head slowly and walks to it, zombie-like. "That can't be right. That clock must be fast. It's-"

She grabs her phone out of her pocket and flips it open. 4:47.

There is a simple red wristwatch on Jacobine's arm. Jane ignores her protests pulls it before her eyes. 4:47

Jacobine jerks her arm away and holds it close to herself.

"Okay, really funny joke, Jane, but I think it's time we let it go now," Hilda says, but it falls on deaf ears.

There is a terrible roaring in Jane's eardrums that makes her feel like her head is about to explode. She grips it tight, massages her temples to try and relax herself. When it's dulled enough, she whirls around. Hilda's been calling her name from somewhere far off. She shuts right up and shrinks back a little when Jane rounds on her.

"What day is it?" Jane demands.

Hilda looks to Jacobine for help, but she's just as lost.

"Uh… it's May 4th. Jane, do you need a doctor or something? Because we do have those here and… Jane? Jane, wait!"

She's halfway to the door by now. She's dazed but not incoherent and knows where she is going. Nothing can stop her now. There are images passing by her eyes that are far more to her now than anything in the real world, which is hardly even real to her anymore. The last thing she sees before she leaves is the clock that reads 4:48.

She takes the familiar path to the TV room. Staff members and custodians aplenty pause in their day to day lives to watch her go, unperturbed and in no way fearful for the future of the world. Some of them point at her and whisper as she passes. One person spins his finger around his head and then laughs with his friend.

Jane bursts into the room, which is completely empty barring the person who had been about to leave when she ran in. They stop to give her an odd look before departing, and now she's alone. She stands on her spot instead of sits. The remote is trapped in her pure white, cold fingers as she flips through channel after channel, looking for that ever important and world changing broadcast.

General news.

General news.

Soap opera.

Infomercial.

TV Drama.

Sports.

Sports.

General news.

Cartoons.

Nothing.

There are only ten channels to speak of. All of them show regular programming for a regular Friday afternoon. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Business as usual.

Jane's arm falls limp at her side. She's staring at the final channel, which is nothing but static and white noise that sounds like a drill going through her brain.

The time on the clock is 4:51.

"No way.  _No way…_ "

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

He's getting impatient.

The crowds have barely thinned in the hours he's been waiting. Whenever someone leaves, a whole group arrives to take his place. They are loud and boisterous and fueling Loki's already very low opinion of Midgardians. Someone in the corner pours a mug of foul smelling whiskey over his friends head. The man laughs like an idiot and falls over to the floor. The bartender barely acknowledges them. How many times has he seen this before, Loki wonders.

There is an old analog clock high on the wall above. It's made of chipped, splintered wood and reads 4:46 in the afternoon. It would be late morning in New York, right in the middle of his invasion. They would be converging within the hour to futilely search for him. Loki leans forward on the rickety bar stool, which stays up only because he's being careful. This place is absolutely horrendous. Once he's done with this, he's never coming back here again, dreams be damned. Now, if only Jane Foster would be kind enough to make her appearance so he can get this over with. He's still not sure what he's going to do when she gets here. He'll figure it out when the time comes.

He looks at the clock again, the pads of his fingers lightly drumming the splintered wood bar. It's getting closer to five now and she's still not here. It's come to him that he never checked the time during their last encounter. It was definitely during the afternoon while the sun was starting to set. He remembers the way it stretched out and reached her light brown hair, making all the little untamed bits shine and stick out all the more. She had been quite unkempt, in fact. There was an odd look in her eyes like she was secretly exhausted. He doubted she really was, though. She couldn't possibly have done all the things she'd done with him if she was even the least bit tired.

Loki momentarily gets lost in memory, stopping himself before his body can give away what he's thinking. The bartender, the one Loki very distinctly recalls being the one Jane had been venting to, is now greeting another, much younger man dressed in a similar uniform. They speak in rapid Norwegian that Loki can't quite make out. His grasp on the language isn't bad, it's good enough that he can catch a few key phrases like 'take over' and 'see you tomorrow.' Then the bartender grabs his coat and hat and heads out the door. As the new bartender gets ready to take his first order of the night, Loki jumps off of his seat. He follows the bartender out the door, misjudging his own strength and just about taking it off its hinges. He removes the invisibility.

"You there!"

His commanding shout gets the bartender's attention, even though there are about ten other people walking around that he could be talking to.

"Need something?" the man asks in his native language.

Loki points at the bar. "You work there, don't you?"

The bartender raises an eyebrow. "Yes, but my shift is over. You want a drink, go talk to Peter inside."

He turns and leaves without another word. Loki has no need to stop him again. Walking backwards, he finds himself on a bench just over the boardwalk. When no one is looking, he shields himself again and sends out four or five doubles all over the town. Their search for Jane Foster starts to take too long, and his newfound anxiety can't take it. He sends out a few more, and then even more after that. The strain of the magic it takes to hold them all makes him woozy, but he refuses to call them back until every inch of every square mile of this and the surrounding villages have been thoroughly searched. This takes over an hour, and the conclusion is as simple as it is extraordinary.

Jane Foster is nowhere to be found.

And that is just not possible.

Loki gets up and begins to pace around the bench, going in an endless circle. If he allowed himself to leave footprints, they'd leave permanent indentations. He has no trouble keeping his mind clear, but these are not the most welcome thoughts he could have. Jane Foster is not around, but she was very clearly here two repeats ago. She had been sitting at the bar, talking at length to the very bartender who had just left without a word to anyone. He could have been late and just missed her, but that didn't explain how she could get so many miles away that none of his doubles could find her. There was no chance of him having mistaken someone else for her, she knew far too much. It was definitely her and she had definitely been here and she was definitely not here now.

Loki walks a little faster, unaware that he's lost his concentration on the spell that keeps him unseen, and now everyone is staring at the bizarre man in black who looks like he's contemplating attacking a bench.

 _'How could it be possible that she's not here?'_  Loki thinks.  _'I've lived this unchanging day so many times, and it's true I only went to Jane Foster once before butshe would have to be as set in her ways as everyone else. Every day she should have come here, gone home with another man perhaps, so how is it that today, she's not even in this town? How could such an anomaly occur without my intervention?'_

That's where Loki stops, because the thought that's just entered his head has the power of a brick wall.

What if this isn't an anomaly?

What if what he's seen today is, in fact, the way things are supposed to go?

What if Jane Foster being here on that day was the true anomaly?

So far, the only changes to the timeline Loki has seen are the ones he created himself, because he knows everything that was going to happen. This was the first change he had in no way influenced. This was all Jane Foster's doing.

And that means...

A sweet little old lady walking home from the store with some groceries and a new toy for her Grandson screams and faints as the tall and harrowed young man she was about to greet as she passed disappears in an explosion of light and color.

**

_It just doesn't make any sense. The invasion and attack on New York has happened every day for seventeen days without fail. I have already established that I am the only one with any awareness, and any changes that have been made have been the result of my own actions. Even on my most active days, there is no chance I could have done anything that would stop the attack. I have considered that someone not directly associated with me could also be aware, but for something like this to happen, they would also have to directly relate to the attack on either side. If it is one of the Avengers or someone associated with them, then that might explain what happened today. They spent enough days getting a feel for how Loki plans his attack and then stopped it before it could begin. That only begs the question of why. It may be that stopping the attack was the key all along, but then what does my involvement signiffy? Unless I'm really not supposed to be involved. Maybe whatever caused this repeating day had aftereffects that brought random people into its scope by chance. That could mean I'm not the only one aware, and there could be any number of people across the globe going through the same thing I am. It's an oddly comforting thought, but more I think about it, the more implausible it becomes._

_That just leaves all the same questions unanwered. Why is it that today something so different suddenly happens? It can only mean that at lst one other person knows what is going on like I do, someone who has enough influence over the attack to stop it completely._

Jane stops there. Her handwriting has become far too sloppy, her words taking up three lines at a time. There are also some really embarrassing spelling and grammar errors. Jane pulls up a chair to sit down somewhere. She winds up in front of her small vanity, facing the mirror. She looks awful.

"There has got to be a logical explanation for this," she says, knowing very well that there isn't. "There has to be something I've missed that explains everything. It can't be that someone else is involved that I don't even know. My God, I let a Norse God sleep in my place for three days and now this? I have nothing to do with any of this. Why…?"

She puts her hands in her hair, running fingers through tangled locks. She catches onto a couple of knots, gently pulling until her scalp starts to hurt. She can't stop the new theories that come to her, each more absurd than the last. The curse of being a scientist: never a quiet moment.

She sits there in that same, despondent way until something else comes to her, something terrible.

The only way for a battle to happen is for one side to attack, and the other side to retaliate. That means that the only way to end a battle without any bloodshed is for that first side to not attack. For  _Loki_  not to attack…

And how many other days had she sat out watching it anyway? How many other days went exactly like this? There had been the fifth cycle, followed by the sixth, all the way up until the tenth. Any one of those days, could have ended uneventfully. Then there had been the days she spent plotting her escapes, and the day at the bar when she'd spent the night with that man.

That tall, dark haired man with the strange and unsettling eyes who'd been only too happy to play along with her game.

Jane's heart stops.

_'Hello Sir, you wouldn't happen to be Thor's brother, Loki, would you?_

_-dark hair, blue eyes, so tall-_

"Oh…"

_'And what if I am?'_

_-hands tongue body-_

_'So, you are?'_

_-hands tongue body Loki Loki Loki Loki-_

"Oh My God."

She looks up and there he is, his reflection in the mirror, staring down at her half crazed.

Unforgiving hands wrap around her and wrench her up. There is growling like an angry animal in her ears as she's thrown against the wall and held several inches off the ground so they're level. He's even scarier up close. He leans in, so that he has to press his forehead against her so their lips don't touch.

_"Do you know?"_

Jane's mouth has fallen open, but she's still reeling off the pain in her head and arms. Her heart has gotten working again far too well. It's close to bursting out of her chest. When she takes too long, Loki grits his teeth and shoves her back again. She just barely avoids hitting her head and getting a nasty bump.

"Come on," he snarls. "Talk.  _Answer me, damn you."_

He shakes her a few times, as if that's going to make it easier for her to formulate a response. She's as tongue-tied as ever, and it doesn't help that those eyes of his are are turning from icy blue to an even more unnatural blood red. In their place, his skin starts to take on a much darker shade, and if she's not mistaken, the temperature has dropped significantly. Incoherent fear runs through her body, but it can't silence her.

"You didn't attack today."

Loki stares at her a moment longer and then let's go. Jane falls ungracefully on her ass, but it's better than the alternative. Loki's appearance mercifully goes back to normal as he walks away from her. His posture is strong and dignified, but the harrowed way he rubs at his arm ruins it, and lessens her fears a bit.

"Alright," he says. "So you know."

What he does next would have put Jane more at ease if it had been absolutely anyone else ever. Instead, Loki's subsequent laughter makes her wish there was some kind of emergency exit she could sneak out of. He's blocking the only door.

"You know," he repeats and turns around. He's grinning and it looks wrong. " _You_  know."

He points at Jane, and a stab of indignation that cares little about the danger at hand goes through her.

"Do you have a problem with me?" she asks, but it doesn't sound like her voice anymore.

Loki's grin fades. Jane immediately regrets what she just said, and since she can't exactly apologize, she just steps a little further away from him, up against the wall.

"I'm just surprised," Loki says, examining her from across the room. "That out of all those involved with myself or my brother, who might have had some sort of use in this repetition,  _you_  are the one who is granted awareness. You and no one else."

He closes in on her, and Jane has nowhere to run. He comes near enough without invading her space like the first time. Jane can still see every little spot on his face, every droplet of sweat. Her heart is pounding.

"What good could you possibly be?"

Jane gawks at him, and barks a laugh of her own that she almost thinks makes him flinch. "Are you serious? You're really trying to imply that I'm only in this because of you."

He waves her answer off like it's nothing to him. "What other reason could there be, Jane Foster?"

"Oh, you've got to be kidding," she says, jabbing a finger into his armored chest. It hurts, but she bites it back. No way is he getting the satisfaction of knowing that. "So, what? This is about you and I get to come along for the ride because we're just such  _good friends_ , and you just can't live without me in your personal little corner of hell?"

"Be silent," he snaps. "Here I thought you were intelligent. Surely, you never believed that this was about you."

Jane falters. Her notebook filled with her jumbled up mess of notes is next to the bed behind him. She can read the large print from here. Clenching a fist, she returns his hard stare.

"Who says it's about either one of us," she shoots back with an ironic smile. "Maybe we're both just lucky."

Loki gives a little, displeased groan and walks around her.

"The things you'll come up with to ease your suffering. I should have expected this from a mortal."

Jane's blood boils.

"And what have you been doing, you're so much better than the 'mortals.' Why aren't you stopping this?"

"Be silent," Loki seethes, looking like he's just sucked on a practically sour lemon. It does wonders for Jane's mood.

"Oh, you can't, can you?" she says with great relish. He glares heatedly and Jane answers it with a coy smile. "Well, look at the big powerful God now. Can't even fix a little lapse in time."

If looks could kill, Jane wouldn't even be six feet under, she'd just be a pile of ash. It doesn't have nearly the effect it might have five minutes ago. Jane is done being afraid for now. It's been coming to this for a long time, ever since she first woke up and realized tomorrow hadn't come. All the fear and confusion and boredom and rage had welled up inside of her, leaking out here and there, but never spilling until now. Now she finally had someone to aim it at, and he's a more than deserving target.

Deserving, but not easy.

"Look at the impressive scientist," Loki mimics her tone perfectly. "Acts bigger than she is when in reality, she's happy to be bedded by the very one she ridicules."

"That has no bearing on this, and you know it," Jane says. Even as she does, she feels her face grow hot. Is she blushing? She leans over slightly to look at her reflection. Dammit, she's blushing. "I didn't even know it was you."

"Never lie to me, Jane Foster," he says firmly. "You called me by my name; you knew  _exactly_  who I was."

"I thought you were lying!" she cries. "I thought you were just some guy trying to get laid. I would never have done it if I knew it was you."

"You say that, and yet in the same breath you admit that your wish was to have me in your bed. You cannot have it both ways Jane Foster."

"If it were up to me, I wouldn't have it  _either way_."

"What's done is done."

"Enough with this! Stop changing the subject."

"Then don't deny what you desired that night."

"That night is  _not important_  and even if it was, I  _don't_  want you."

"What did I say about lying to me?"

"I don't know, why don't you turn back the clock so we can do it over again? Oh wait, you can't."

"Woman, if you know what is good for you, you will  _not_  start that again."

"Oh, shut up, you hypocrite. What? Can't handle your poor, bruised ego?"

"I will not warn you again. Shut your mouth or feel my wrath, you little impudent little twit."

"Let me guess, you only care so much about what we did because some stupid bar sex is the only way you can feel big anymore. You can't do anything to stop this at all, can you? Face it you're as powerless as I am."

"SILENCE!"

"YOU FIRST!"

He smashes a fist through her vanity, which gives completely and sends her make-up and brushes rolling on the floor. It's only an inch or so to the left of her, and he's right in her face. For the third time now, they are close enough to feel each other's breath, but this isn't like all the other times. Jane is shaking and her clothes feel far too tight, and he looks no better. Jane will never be able to say for sure who makes the first move. She jumps right as he grabs her, and their lips are crushed together in a sloppy mess of a dance as their rage and lust filled moans mingle together. Their hands go for each other's hair. Loki doesn't care to not make it painful when he pulls out all of those knots, but the stinging feels so good right now.

He gets them over to the bed without looking, and Jane pushes him down on it. He waves his hand in the air around them. Jane doesn't know why at first, and then their clothes melt away, and she decides that she  _really_  likes magic a lot.

Hours go by and nighttime falls. The window is shut but Jane's seen plenty of stars. Unlike the first time, they don't hold each other in the afterglow. They keep as far from each other as humanly possible, which isn't much since Jane's bed is only built for one and their legs are still touching. Jane catches her breath and ignores the jolts of pain already going down her legs as she turns and looks Loki in the eye.

"Okay, we need to talk."


	8. Days 19-21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My deepest apologies for the long wait. I wish I could say that they will come quicker from here on in, but I have another story that I'm trying to finish and that's going to eat up my time for a while. Please be patient with me in the meantime.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the chapter!

_Day 19: Jane Foster_

Jane wakes up feeling horribly nauseous and barely makes it to the bathroom in time to throw up. She thinks it had something to do with the milk she drank at breakfast yesterday. It  _had_  tasted kind of funky.

That's the story Jacobine hears when she comes around like clockwork to badger Jane awake. In hindsight, she probably should have come up with a better cover, since all it lead to was a barrage of questions about her overall health and how much pain she was in and Jacobine should go and get the doctor. Jane managed to talk her out of it, promising to spend the day in bed and drink plenty of ginger ale, which Jacobine 'helpfully' bought for her from the vending machine.

Now blissfully alone, Jane sits at the foot of her bed with her obligatory empty notebook in hand. The radio is turned to some easy listening station for background noise. So far, she's come to a couple conclusions: saxophone music is the most calming sound in the universe, and Loki has a thing for being 'fashionably' late.

Last night, following her assertion that it was time to talk, Loki had mumbled something she couldn't understand and turned away from her. It wasn't until she was on the visages of sleep that she got a clear response.

"Tomorrow."

That was the last thing Jane heard and it might as well have just been a dream. She woke up to the sound of that same stupid song and the feel of an empty bed. Thank G- thank the Lord for that.

It would have been nice to just pretend Loki's entire visit had been a dream. Because of all the people in the world she could be in this with, him? Really?

She could almost understand how he felt about her, although she at least had more concrete and justifiable reasons for not wanting him around than just 'I'm a God so I'm more important than you, foolish mortal woman.'

It's been several hours now since she woke up. Plenty of time for sitting and thinking and processing what she did last night. Too bad it wasn't getting her anywhere. Her notebook stays empty this time, because every time she thinks of something she wants to write down, the pen barely scratches the surface before her mind wanders to something else, and she immediately forgets the initial thought. If not that, she just doesn't know if it makes a difference anymore.

On the radio, the velvety voiced male DJ intones that it is now 3 o'clock in the afternoon, which is funny, because she could've sworn he said it was quarter past 2 five minutes ago. When the hell does he plan on showing up anyway?

As always, there are a couple of different voices talking in her head all at once. The loudest is telling her that she should have made the effort to get something a little less vague than 'tomorrow' out of him. Anything at all, even just a time frame.  _Something._

The second loudest voice is softer and snake-like, and actually reminds her a lot of Loki himself. It thinks that maybe he just won't show up at all. Or if he does, he'll kill her first thing and be done with it. So what if she'll probably just come back at the start of the next cycle? Someone as ancient and experienced as him could come up with dozens of ways to torture her for his own amusement.

Jane shuts her eyes and shuts out that voice as much as she can. Instead she listens to the really stupid one that reminds her of the one other field she knows firsthand he is very  _experienced_  in. She's coming to expect that pooling heat in her stomach that he brings about, which is either a very good thing or a very  _very_  bad thing.

It's not like there's much else she can do when all that she knows about Loki is his megalomania and incredible bedroom prowess. Surely there's more to him than that.

Jane gives up on getting anything constructive done at about 3:18 if the wall clock is accurate. It's around then that the air thickens with another presence, and suddenly Jane is no longer alone.

Loki is sitting at her vanity, turned away from the mirror and facing her. He crosses one long leg over the other and her tiny seat strains under his weight. Unlike yesterday, he's wearing Asgardian style armor, all blacks and greens lined with gold. Jane right away likes it better than the suit. When he's like this, she can separate him from her people and remember what he really is beneath that human face.

He has his arms behind his head, leisurely stretched out over air. He meets her gaze without a word. In fact, neither of them are speaking, engaged as they are in their staring contest and all but daring each other to have the first word.

It is eventually Jane who caves, much to her consternation.

"Next time, you should let me know what time you're coming."

He snorts.

" _Next_  time."

"So that I'm not just sitting here waiting for you," she says heatedly. She thinks right away that she's said too much, and she knows it when he starts smirking and tracing the bed with his eyes.

"Well, I sincerely apologize, dear Jane Foster, for leaving you when you so  _desired_  my company."

' _Go fuck yourself,'_  she thinks.

"Alright, can we talk seriously now?" she asks.

He is still smiling in a particularly infuriating way that makes her question whether it's worth breaking her hand to try punching it off of him. He opens his arms in a welcoming gesture.

"Be my guest," he says.

Jane gets off the bed and starts to walk around. She is immensely glad she remembered to put on pants before he got there.

"So I've been thinking…" she says, expect she really hasn't and she has no idea what to say to him, which she's only just realized. Everything that comes to mind is either rudimentary or obvious. She is left standing with her mouth open while he brings a hand to his chin like he's completely focused on her.

"Truly, your thought process is most fascinating."

She tries to look casual when she turns her head, just checking the time and not at all hiding a scowl.

"Well, I'd love to hear what  _you_  think of all this," she says.

"Do you presume yourself capable of comprehending my thoughts?"

Jane's blood boils, but she grits her teeth and breathes slowly in and out through her nose again and again until it passes. It's a useful technique her old therapist taught her, and one she's probably going to need a lot in the coming days. She's five seconds away from booting Loki's pasty ass out the door, and he hasn't even been here three minutes.

"As I was saying before," she says sharply. "I think it's abundantly clear that whatever is going on here isn't going to end anytime soon."

"Abundantly," he agrees.

"And the fact that we're both aware of it rather than just one or neither of us must mean that there is some reason for it."

"You still believe that," he says out the corner of his mouth. Really, he doesn't even seem to be listening to her anymore. He's too busy studying her living quarters and sniffing condescendingly at anything he doesn't like, which so far is everything.

"I can't think of any other reason why I'm here," Jane answers while trying hard not to outwardly tremble. "But if you can, be my guest."

He pretends to think. "Perhaps it's as you said last night. You're just lucky."

There is a beat, and then Jane is off, grabbing an old chair pushed off into the corner. It's caving in, so Jane hasn't been using it, but for now she'll make due. Dragging it across the floor, she sets it in front of Loki and sits down.

"Okay," Jane says upon sitting down. She is just about level with him now and meeting his gaze without fear. "In the interest of not repeating last night, I'm just going to get to the bottom line: I don't like you. I don't like you one little bit and it would make be very happy if I never saw your face again."

She pauses in case he wants to interrupt, which he doesn't.

"Unfortunately, there's a very good chance we're the only ones who know what is going on right now and that means we're in this together, so if we're going to survive this with our sanity intact, we're going to have to find some common ground and  _you_ \- you are _not_  going to patronize and look down on me every step of the way, you understand me? I don't care who you are or what you can do or how much smarter than me you  _think_  you are. I won't just sit back and let you fuck around with me!"

Her heart races out of her chest and in her ears. The sudden burst of adrenaline mutes the side of her that is appalled with herself for taking it way further than she'd planned. He's probably going to snap her neck for this.

Instead, his lips curl into a smile she can't decipher.

"Oh Jane, Jane, Jane," he says. "It's such a shame that you don't…  _like_ me. Because after that, I very much like you."

Jane narrows her eyes into slits and leaves her seat. She hears him tsk behind her.

"Oh what? Is this no longer complimentary on Midgard?"

"Not the way  _you_  say it," she hisses.

Loki stands as well, coming over to her side. When Jane looks over her opposite shoulder, she sees her little plastic stool is just about crushed. She looks at him and wonders just how much that crazy armor of his actually weighs.

"I am surprised that you would speak of trust, Jane Foster," he says. "For though you don't say it, I know that's what you're asking for."

He looks down on her, using his superior height to his advantage, and it's not fair because he is well over six feet and she's barely over five. Maybe if she stands on tip-toes she can get a good look at his chin, and somehow that's getting on her nerves the most.

"It's more like… a truce of sorts," she says after a moment of searching for the right word, which still isn't very right at all. "We don't have to be friends, we just agree to work together and figure out how to stop this."

"And assuming we do?"

Jane shrugs. "You go your way, I go mine."

His eyes widen, and it's the first time he's seemed genuinely surprised, though he masks it fast with more indifference.

"You would leave me to my own devices, knowing what it is I plan to do to your planet."

Jane recognizes the inherent threat and isn't cowed like he must think she'll be.

"It's not like I can stop you," she says with feigned demure before smirking. "That's what we have the Avengers for, isn't it?"

His lips thin out, and again she thinks maybe she's crossed the line. Indeed, the way he slowly advancing on her, when he was already so close to begin with, has all the markings of a wild jungle cat about to devour a helpless antelope. She backs up to the wall and he pins her there with his gaze alone. His arms remain locked at his sides, but for how long?

"You really think that, don't you?" he says.

Jane swallows, not so much out of fear and more from horror because the way he lowers his voice and  _growls_ those words is going straight between her legs. She tries to cross them as much as possible without giving herself away. Hopefully he can't smell her like a predator.

"What if I told you," he went on quietly, "that I have already once defeated your so-called Avengers, and that were it not for this resetting of time, I would already have half your planet under my thumb?"

Her first instinct is to call his bluff. Of course he hasn't actually won against them. She knows very well how it goes for him everyday, she's seen the newscast...

Except for the days she doesn't.

The bottom drops out from Jane's stomach, and she can't really hide the way she pales from him. He's just so satisfied with himself right now, she's reconsidering trying to smack him.

"I see you understand," he says, and it's  _that voice_  again. "You play yourself up as strong, Jane Foster, but I can see you as you truly are. You are quivering in fear of me, as you rightly should."

That's not the only reason, she thinks, and she hates him more than ever before.

"Unlike you, I have no reason to think I need your help in any way. Perhaps I will agree to work with you, and perhaps I won't, but make no mistake that one way or the other, you are and always will be nothing to me. And should I tire of you, there will be no Thor to save you from me."

He doesn't let up, even as she refuses to look away from him or show any fear. One of the only memories she has of her father is him telling her how to deal with bullies: stand up tall, keep your back straight, and never let them intimidate you. Loki may be significantly more of a threat than a playground bully, but the principle is the same. Time snails by until she's certain a whole hour has passed, but when she looks at the clock later she'll see it was only about five minutes.

Then, just as suddenly as the moment he appeared in her room, he walks away from her and the tension breaks.

"Well, I think that was productive for a first day," he says cheerfully.

Jane blinks, her mouth opening on its own so that she looks as stupid and blindsided as possible, and Loki chuckles as he moves towards the door.

"Wha- wait, where are you going?"

She runs after him, but he doesn't make a move, almost like he's waiting for her.

"Oh, did you wish for me to stay longer and entertain you?" he asks coyly. "I'm afraid I have other, more important matters to attend to."

"Like _what?_ "

He ignores the question and Jane feels the hairs on her neck stand and the air grow heavy with magic. Jane would love to be happy that he's leaving and to tell him never to come back. It would also be nice if he could leave the planet and go to somewhere so far away that she wouldn't even be able to see with the Hubble Telescope. Too bad she still needs him.

She's about to demand the exact date and time of his next arrival, and also that he wear something lighter if he intends to lounge around her room like he owns it. He cuts her off swiftly and effectively, with one long finger running along her cheek down to her chin, and while her face heats up, he grins.

"Don't worry, Jane Foster, I will return in due time," he says. "I am not so cruel as to leave you wanting."

And then he's gone, vanished into thin air, leaving her hand to sail through the air where his face had been. Jane spins around ungracefully and falls on her ass from the velocity. With a cry that is in equal parts pain and anger, Jane grabs the closest thing to her, a pillow hanging halfway off the bed, and chucks it at the door.

"ASSHOLE!"

She can almost hear him laughing at her.

**

_Day 20: Jane Foster_

_**'Come on Eileen, oh I swear** _

_**At this moment, you mean everything!'** _

_**'With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess** _

_**Verge on dirty** _

_**Ah come on Eileen.'** _

"Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there's work to be done. Do not make us wait for you."

"Come on, Jane, get moving! If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast. And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I'm going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!"

It's one of those mornings Jane spends lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and ignoring Jacobine's knocking until she finally gives up and leaves her be. The difference is that Jane is contending with some pretty heavy developments to her situation, the severity of which having only just hit her.

Loki is in the time loop with her. The same Loki who attacked her hometown, nearly killed her and her friends, and has destroyed New York City at least six times.

The same Loki she's slept with twice.

Jane throws aside the covers, literally, all the way across the room. She gets out of bed and is just aware enough of her surroundings to throw on a pair of pants before leaving. Her shoes are forgotten. If she gets stares from fellow scientists and researchers, walking around in casual clothes and barefoot, she cannot and does not notice.

She walks to the pantry next to the kitchen, which is empty now that breakfast has been cooked and distributed. No one is supposed to be in here for the next three hours. Jane opens every single cabinet and drawer with no luck until she reaches the very bottom one over to the far left. It is padlocked, but Jane had a cousin who taught her once how to pick locks. It's undone and on the floor in no time, and Jane quickly relieves the cabinet of half its contents.

She carries it in a cloth bag, which doesn't diminish how heavy her ill-gotten gains are. Jane slings it over her shoulder, dull to the pain it causes, and walks back to her room. On her way, she passes the library. It's really just a single wall lined with books and only one small shelf has any in English. Jane almost passes it by, but doubles back at the last second. She pulls a book at random from the English shelf and reads the title aloud.

"A comprehensive guide to Norse Mythology and its Important Figures…"

Jane glances up, looking blandly over the head of the sixty-something year old, balding scientist with a heavy text in his lap who is looking at her like she's lost her mind. He's not too far off.

Jane walks the rest of the way with a heavy bag on one arm and a book under the other, snickering to herself all the way.

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

If he's perfectly honest with himself, Loki isn't actually going to harm Jane Foster.

The fact that he absolutely would have 20 repeats ago is barely a gleam in his eye. Everything appealing about the idea had been dashed away by time. Sure, Thor would be angered and more willing to bend to him and his wishes if he knew his woman was under Loki's thumb, but none of the others would care enough about one person to give up the planet. Plus, he knows how to defeat them now. Jane Foster is all but a pointless addition to his dilemma whom he really should have just left to rot away.

The only reason he's coming back at all is because he is bored and she's fun to play with. If he can say anything in Jane Foster's favor, it's that she is tenacious. Outside of Asgard, he has never met a woman so unyielding, if only for appearance. He has no doubt that she feara him, whether or not she even knows it himself. Playing with her mind might be the only meager amusement he can get out of all this, but he won't hurt her, just push her as far as he can until she breaks. It's going to take a lot to break her.

He kills a little time taking the long way to her room, walking invisibly up and down the whitewashed halls of the observatory. Yesterday he invaded SHIELD Headquarters one more time and found their reports detailing Jane Foster's hiding place. Apparently this place is highly respected among the Midgardians, having had a hand in numerous discoveries and appearing in countless scientific journals. It's not that impressive to him. He looks around the place and spots several older gentlemen laughing at some inane joke one of them told. A pair of younger women, one tall with a painted face and the other short and squat, whisper to each other over poorly prepared meals. When he gets closer, it's something about an 'ex-boyfriend' and his 'performance issues.' Loki starts to look forward to seeing Jane Foster again after all that. She, at least, knows how to act professionally.

He opens the door to her room after magically unlocking it, and finds her lying on her back with her shirt riding up to her midriff. There are wine and beer bottles everywhere and she is holding a large, thick book directly over her head.

"It is said!" She shouts. "That Loki was the mo- most sexually insatiable of the Gods!"

She stops to laugh, which compounded by a series of hiccups.

"His many, many lovers… included men and women and horses and trees and rocks?!"

She lets the book fall and it hits the floor hard. The sound makes Loki wince, almost as much as the volume of Jane Foster's voice. He kicks a bottle that's rolled to his foot and walks inside. He shuts the door behind him, though he thinks he should leave it open and let anyone who dares to pass by see her in her disgrace.

She starts to pick herself up, hindered by her inebriated state. She manages little more than rising to her hands and feet. Anything else and she just rolls back over onto her back with a high-pitched whoop and a laugh. Loki eyes the littered bottles and counts them up. There are eleven of them, and hilariously, only two are missing any of their contents.

"You don't drink very often, do you?" he asks.

She looks up at him, or at least at the part of the wall she  _thinks_  is him.

"I'unno what you're talkin about. Hey how- how d'you have sex with a rock anyway?"

Loki can feel his head beginning to pound.

"I mean, I kinda understand trees 'cause I saw Evil Dead, but _rocks_? How's that work? Oh, and what wassit like giving birth to a horse? Did it hurt?"

She burst out laughing again, louder and more uncontrollable. She's going to swallow her tongue if she's not careful, and Loki would love to just leave her to it. He begrudgingly scoops her up into his arms, her shivering gradually fading away as she gazes up at him, grinning like an idiot.

"Mrs. Robinson, yer trying to seduce me, aren't you?"

She claps a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles and fails miserably at it. Loki has no idea how to respond to that or who this Robinson person is, so he does nothing but walk her to the bed.

"Hahaha- oh- oh man, I'm tired…"

"I can imagine," Loki mutters.

"Hey! Hey, Loki! You should intr- interduce me to yer children. I wanna meet them."

"I do not have any children, Jane Foster."

"Liar. I read it in a  _book_ , and books don't tell lies, unlike  _you_."

He roughly drops her on the twisted sheets. She bounces a couple of times and she must be enjoying it because she squeals and laughs harder than ever.

"Oh are we doing that again?" she asks with heavily lidded eyes. If she's trying to be seductive, she should try wiping the spit of the side of her mouth first. And she should not get drunk.

"I am  _not_  trying to seduce you," he says firmly, and for some reason that makes her laugh harder. It's quickly becoming his least favorite thing about her, which is saying a lot.

"Ah come on," she says. She gets onto her side somehow with her arm tucked under her head and the other running slowly up and down her hip. "You know you want me!"

"Perhaps another time."

She scoffs, and it quickly descends into yet another laughing fit. "Seriously? You're trying 'a be a gentlemen? You?"

"Does that surprise you?" he wearily asks.

"Oh no, not at  _all_ ," she says, dragging out the last word far longer than necessary. "I know you're way above that kind of thing. It's almost as bad as- I don't know- killing a bunch of people and then trying 'a take over the world! Oh, wait!"

She lets out one big guffaw and starts reaches for the overturned wine bottle a foot away from the bed. Half its contents are spilled out around it, staining the clean floor dark red. It's just out of her reach though, and she's not coherent enough at this point to just move over a little to get it. Loki places his foot atop the bottle, rolling it towards her. She grabs for it, slurring something that sounds like a thank you. Then he kicks it behind him and it slams against the door, losing most of its remaining contents along the way. Jane watches it go and then realizes what he's done. She attempts to glare at him, but she hasn't the energy and winds up face first on the pillow. She does manage to raise one hand with her middle finger up, for whatever reason.

Her strength fails her for the final time and the next thing Loki hears from her is soft snoring muffled by the pillow. Rolling his eyes, he gently rolls her over onto her back. He almost doesn't bother. It wasn't like she wouldn't be alive and well tomorrow. She might resent him for leaving her in this state, though, and much as he doesn't care about her feelings and hates to give her any credit, she had been right when she said they had to get along. If nothing else, he should stay on Jane Foster's good side until all this is over. Not that he really believed she could help him, but she was at least someone to talk to who would still know his face the next day.

Just so long as she stays sober.

**

_Day 21: Loki Laufeyson_

He's a little wary of going to her today and almost doesn't. Spending a day apart might have been good for her after her actions the night before, but then Loki remembers that he doesn't care.

He appears in her room with magic this time, and is for a moment tense, thinking that he will again be greeted with the sight of liquor bottles and an intoxicated woman trying to solicit him. The floor is clean and Jane Foster is sitting on her bed when he arrives, reading a book. She looks up at him, without a hint of anything resembling shock at his sudden appearance.

"Good morning," he says pleasantly. "Did we learn anything interesting last night about our condition?"

Jane moves her head from side to side, lips pursed. "The good news is that there are no hangovers."

"Splendid," says Loki.

"The bad news is that you still remember every single thing that happened," she mutters.

Loki grins evilly. "Intriguing."

"Yesterday never happened."

"Whatever you say."

She sighs deeply and goes back to her book, flipping the pages too fast to be reading them. Loki doesn't sit this time, but just stands off in the corner watching her. Occasionally, she glances up at him, as if wondering what he's even doing here. He's starting to wonder himself.

"Before we agree to purge yesterday from our collective memories," he speaks up, and gives the tiniest smile at her obvious irritation. "May I ask what drove you to it?"

"Why? Thinking it was about you?"

"I doubt that," Loki answers, inwardly sniffing at the thought. "I'm more suspicious of another, actually. Perhaps someone you've been pining for. Someone we are both familiar with."

She laughs, cold and hollow and so unlike how she was yesterday. He isn't sure he likes it.

"So  _that's_  what you think of me," she says venomously, but only just. "Well then, you'll be happy to know that you're right, at least party."

The smile that had been forming at her admittance falls. He covers himself with a cool hum and starts looking around her room. He did this two repeats ago and finds about as much interesting now as he did then. That being nothing at all.

"Partly," he says like it's an afterthought.

"Surprised?" she asks. "The truth is, I was never in love with Thor. I didn't know him well enough. I liked him, sure, I liked him a  _lot_ , but there is way more to love than that and we never got that far. We never will now."

"Well, you don't know that," he says while messing with her papers. She doesn't even try to stop him.

"Of course I do, Loki," she answers with exasperation. "After everything you and I have done, there's no way Thor and I can ever be together, even if we wanted to. You're his _brother_  and I slept with you  _twice_ , if that's not the final nail in the coffin, I don't know what is."

"I'm not," Loki says automatically. It clearly doesn't make sense to Jane as a response, and so she must have already forgotten that she just called him Thor's brother.

He badly wants to correct her, and use very convincing methods to make sure she never says it again. The thought of his true form alone makes him retch, and it's only because of that that Jane Foster is spared with nothing but a sneer and a few choice words.

"Alright, fine," she says under her breath. "Anyway, yesterday was just a kind of catharsis for me. I needed to let some things out so I can move on and not worry about Thor anymore. I was actually reading some stories about him before you got here."

"No doubt they made for a good read," Loki says, although really he stopped caring about what she was saying as soon as she brought up those fairy tales.

"Some of them," she answers, and from the sound of her voice and the rustling of sheets, she has laid down on her bed. When he looks, she is fully clothed, nothing of interest there. "I liked the one about the elves stealing mjolnir and you and Thor having to dress up as women to get it back."

"Oh yes, amusing," he says smoothly. "Shame for your kind that it never happened."

" _Whaaat?"_  she says with an exaggerated moan. "Don't tell me that, it was my favorite!"

"I'm afraid so. Even if the elves were worthy of wielding mjolnir, they'd have a terrible time getting it away from Thor with their limps still attached to their bodies. Perhaps it is only me who thinks it would make a much more interesting story."

"Definitely," Jane Foster says. She sits up fully now and looks to be all business in her posture. "So, about what we talked about the other day, should I take your being here now as a sign that you'll work with me?"

Loki puckers his lips, glancing upwards to make it look like he was thinking it over. He does this until Jane grows impatient and makes it known with a little cough.

"I suppose," he says to appease her. "It's not like your continued involvement can cause any further trouble."

If she wants to argue with him, she doesn't. She seems determined to stand by her stance of peace, even if he isn't.

"And we promise to be civil to each other," she goes on forcefully. "And not belittle each other in any way."

"I will do my very best," he answers, smiling.

"Fine," she says tightly. "Good enough for now."

She holds out her hand, and Loki's been on Midgard long enough to know what she wants. He takes it, and her hand is positively tiny when wrapped in his. He is gentle, so not to hurt her. She wouldn't let him within ten feet of her if she knew how badly he could break it with just a little bit of pressure. When they let go, nothing is at ease between them. She's erected a wall over herself, to protect her from what he might do or say to rattle her. It won't do any good, of course, but let her hold on to her illusions. He wouldn't mind, so long as she remained interesting to him. Foolish as these Midgardians in general were, Jane Foster was at least more intelligent and challenging than the majority.

Yes, she will do for now.

"Okay," she says next, getting to her feet and bypassing him. "There's one more thing I wanted to discuss with you, but first I need the bathroom. Wait here."

She shuts and locks the bathroom door behind her, and Loki hears her moving around inside. His attention is diverted, however, when there comes a sharp knocking at Jane Foster's front door, and an angry voice calls out her name.

**

_Jane Foster_

"Jane Foster, open this door at once!"

As soon as Jane hears it, she freezes.

Dr Ahlberg's knocks become pounds, bashing her door so hard it's amazing she doesn't break it in two. All the while, she kept shouting Jane's name and demanding entry. So far, Loki hadn't done anything about it. Nothing she could hear, anyway. If she's lucky (which she isn't) he would have poofed away already back to his secret lair or wherever he spends his time when he isn't with her. Jane herself really should have gone out there by now to let the good doctor know that she's alright and not to worry about her. If she wasn't in the middle of her business, she would have. Growing frustrated, she digs her fingernails into her scalp.

"Oh god, what is she doing here?" she grinds out. "I told Jacobine I wanted to be alone, that always works! Come on, think Jane, what else did you say?"

She racks through her memories of this morning. After she woke up with noticeable lack of hangover symptoms and finished cursing herself out for what she'd done, Jacobine came banging on the door just like this, and Jane had said:

' _Go on without me Jacobine, I'm not feeling well today. I'm just going to rest.'_

It sounds solid enough in her head, until one key detail sticks out at her.

"I said I didn't feel well," Jane whispers. "But I didn't specify. I always say something like a headache or a stomachache, but today I just said I didn't feel well. She must have thought something was really wrong and told Dr. Ahlberg."

She scrunches over, hands over her head so no one can hear her cry of anger.

"I can't believe this, I'm so stupid. Stupid. Stupid!"

She berates herself until she can finally get up and races to buckle her pants and open the door. She has it half an inch open and looks out… to see that Loki is gone and an exact clone of her is opening the door.

Dr. Ahlberg is in mid-knock and lowers her hand slowly when she sees the other Jane.

"Oh," she says stiffly. "You  _are_  here. I was beginning to wonder…"

"Good afternoon, Doctor. May I help you with something?" the doppel says.

Jane can barely contain her confusion and horror as the doppel smiles politely and invites her boss in. Dr. Ahlberg enters the room with perfect poise, despite the general clutter of the area and the few bits of loose clothing lying around. She seems not to care about anything but the other Jane. Jane stares open mouthed at her through the tiny crack in the door. She covers her mouth. It's so quiet in here, even a stray breath can give her away. Dr. Ahlberg turns away for just a moment, and the doppel looks her way, making Jane's insides twist. A blue flash crosses her brown eyes and the doppel gives a very familiar smile that's somehow even more chilling on Jane's face.

' _Loki, what the hell are you doing?'_

If he can read her thoughts (and she cannot be certain that he can't), he has no visible reaction to her words.

"Dr. Aakare told me that you were unwell," Dr. Ahlberg says. "That she came to wake you this morning for breakfast and you claimed you were sick."

She looks accusingly at 'Jane,' but for all she could make the real Jane uncomfortable, she stands not a chance against Loki.

"Just a head cold, I assure you," he says. His crisp tone mixed with her voice is the most disorienting thing Jane has ever heard.

"Is that all?" Dr. Ahlberg asks lightly.

"I hope you are not angry with me, Doctor," Loki says. "I never intended to be a burden, I just didn't feel that in my current state, I was well enough to work to my fullest ability."

"Well, isn't that nice," Dr. Ahlberg says. She closes in on Loki, taller than him in his current form. That is extremely annoying. "Please don't forget that this is a place of study and experimentation, not luxury. We  _work_  to earn our keep here."

"I understand," Loki says. "And so you'll be happy to know that I am much better now. I'll be back to work by tomorrow."

Dr. Ahlberg observes the fake Jane, while the real one bites her nails and prays to a God that isn't this one that she'll just leave now. Please, please, please please-

"See to it that you are, Ms. Foster."

Jane could've cried in relief, but her hand is still tight over her mouth, so she settles for a long exhale through her nose and a very small fist pump. Dr. Ahlberg turns on a heel and starts for the door while Loki watches her go. Just another couple of seconds and she'll be gone, and this will be nothing more than a funny little memory, so long as Loki does nothing else to stir the pot.

"I'm rather perplexed that you would come all the way here just to scold me, Doctor. It makes me wonder if perhaps you don't like me."

Like that.

Jane scratches her nails down the wooden door frame, leaving deep imprints and nearly taking the nails clean off her fingers. It's the only way she can hold back the scream lodged in her throat as Dr. Ahlberg stills. Her hand slides down to her side limply, and it's a long time before she turns back around. When she does, even in her fury, Jane is given pause. The look on Dr. Ahlberg's face is unlike any she's seen before. The harshness, the intensity of it, since when was Dr. Ahlberg even capable of those emotions? And towards  _her_?

She walks back to the other Jane, right up to 'her' and staring down at an unaffected face.

"I  _loathe_  you."

She's gone almost immediately after saying it, the door swinging loosely behind her. Jane weakly steps out, her doppel not sparing her a glance before being engulfed in a bright green light and morphing back into Loki.

"Don't  _ever_  do that again," Jane snaps at him.

"You're welcome," he answers snidely. "I wonder what you did to that woman to earn such animosity. You must be more of a hellion than you look."

She raises an eyebrow at him. "Would that bother you?"

"Not at all. In fact, I think I like you more now."

Jane shakes her head, but lets it drop. Taking this any further is just going to end in another fight and another day's delay that they really can't afford at the moment. She approaches her bed, ostensibly to sit down and rest after all that excitement, but all she does is stand in front of it.

"About that other thing I wanted to discuss," she says.

"Mmm-hmm…"

His disinterest is bothersome, but Jane doesn't let it get to her. He's  _definitely_  going to pay attention to her in another couple of seconds. She's just surprised that she's not nearly as nervous as she thought she would be.

"I think we should keep doing… what we've been doing," she says, and when he doesn't react, she adds: "In the bedroom."

His eyes just about pop out of his head.

"Are you serious?"

Jane bites her lips, steeling herself. "Why not? It's not like it means anything, it's just… you know, so we don't go crazy. We have some form of release."

Then she closes her eyes because that's a  _bad_  choice of words. She can hear his dark little chuckle that makes her skin crawl, but also excites her. The fact that it goes from several feet away to right in her ear within seconds is bad enough without her taking far too long to react to it. She jumps and his arms are already around her.

"Well, if that's what you wish," he says, and oh God  _that voice_. She just knows he's going to use it every single time.

"I didn't mean right  _now_ ," she gasps, as he presses a kiss to her ear lobe and starts down to her neck.

"You wish to stop then?"

He runs a finger along the lines of her jeans and that's it for her. She somehow gets him to face her and jumps as high as she can to reach his mouth. She just misses and gets his neck, but he's not complaining. They get to the bed and another handy spell does away with their clothes before Jane can open her mouth to demand it.

And though neither of them says anything throughout the act, their eyes linger on the door.


	9. Day 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we begin this chapter, I'd just like to inform you all that I've posted a prequel Clintasha oneshot to this story, titled 'All The Pretty Little Horses.' I recommend you read that if you haven't already. It's important for later on.

_Day 22: Jane Foster_

Jane finds an unused lab on the basement floor. In it is a miscellany of discarded equipment: broken chalkboards, dirty beakers and obsolete telescopes. There's no chance of anyone coming down here, which makes it the perfect place for a private meeting with the villainous god she was fucking. Jane wishes she had it in her to laugh, because when you put it down on paper, this is a hilarious situation she's gotten herself into. If this were a book, she'd be fully engrossed, never putting it down while simultaneously glad that something like this could never happen to her.

Oh, if only.

Putting wishful fantasies aside, Jane has some preparing to do. This lab is the third of three empty ones all lined up in a row, and for all the piled up chairs and decaying tables and the layer of dust caking everything, it is by far the most spacious of the three, as well as the cleanest. At the very least she can walk around the length of it without worrying about tripping. The working mini-fridge is also a nice plus.

Jane finds a clean table and brushes aside the grime with her sleeve. The only chairs in the room are the tall backless kind that she hates, but it's better than standing. She finds one that's in good enough shape and drags it over. Within five minutes of sitting down, her back is killing her, and the floor is looking pretty damn good.

The clock on the wall is working, but its twenty two minutes slow. Jane's been glancing at her wristwatch every couple of seconds for the last hour. She wishes she knew how long she was with Loki last night. It's hard to say because he didn't allow much room for contemplating the time, or thinking at all. For all that he insists the mythology surrounding him is false, they were right on the money with the 'sexually insatiable' bit. She wouldn't complain, but at some point, they're going to have to sit down and have a long talk about boundaries, because there was no telling the kind of things he'd gotten up to in the thousand or so years he'd been alive- and how many people he'd been with. Meanwhile, the kinkiest thing she's ever done was be on top for a couple of seconds when she first lost her virginity.

For now, it would be nice if he could just show up at the time he said he would.

She'd made him promise to be here by no later than 11 o' clock in the morning. She figured that would give them both enough time to compose themselves and prepare for another cycle of attempted co-existing and cooperating. Loki had an easy time agreeing to her terms, too easy in fact. Jane knows in her deeply logical center that he's not trustworthy. Hell, one of his supposed titles was the god of lies. She should expect nothing less from him than endless obstructions and dicking around for his own amusement. So she's not surprised when 11:30 comes and goes and he's a no-show, or even when it's 12:30. 2 o' clock… okay, that's pushing it a little. By 2:45 Jane is grinding her teeth and wondering if she should just go back to her room and try to forget about all this. If he's not going to show, why should she bother waiting? She's sitting on an ice cold floor with bits of sand digging through her jeans and into her skin while he's off somewhere laughing at her. She doesn't expect to fall asleep, that just happens. All she wanted was to clear her head of all the bad and then figure out what she was doing from here. It would be infinitely better if she had something soft to sit on.

Jane falls into oblivion, only to be jolted awake twenty minutes later in a big cushy armchair with Loki sitting on the table across from her.

"Comfortable?"

Jane wiggles around in the chair. She wants to stand, but the cushions are too soft, swallowing her up. She falls in deeper the more she struggles, until her legs can't even reach the ground and kick uselessly at the air. If she raises her head just far enough and her chin isn't blocking her way, she can see the thin little smile on his face. Bastard.

"Get me out of here!" she sputters. A big chunk of her hair gets caught in her mouth and she coats it with saliva trying to spit it back out.

"I thought you didn't like the floor," Loki says with mock hurt.

"How did you even know that?" she shouted.

"You talk in your sleep."

"What? No I don't!"

"And how would you know?"

Jane won't dignify that one with a response. Her energy is much better spent getting out of this god-forsaken chair while maintaining as much class as possible. The thought of asking him for help is about as appealing as getting a wisdom tooth removed without anesthesia. Any part of her that might have considered thinking about it dies with his cruel laughter. She kicks her legs out, hoping one might 'accidentally' get him in the gut or between the legs. No such luck, though.

"It's amazing how much you'll fight against your own limitations." His voice sounds closer than it was a few seconds ago, but Jane isn't aware of how close he really is until his hand wraps around her wrist. With a single, swift motion, Jane is on her feet and pressed into his armored body. His free hand is in his pocket, and the one he's used to raise her is still cold on her sensitive skin. She would pull away if she thought he would let her.

"I could've done it myself," she says defiantly, and kind of pathetically as the nasty little voice in her head (it's starting to sound more and more like Loki) happily tells her.

"Oh yes, you were well on your way."

He lets her go, missing the look of pure loathing she shoots at him, not that he would've cared if he saw it.

"So anything useful to say today?" she asks a few minutes later when they are settled, he by the wall and she on one of the tables. She's not bothering with a chair as long as he's in the room.

"What do you have in mind?" he asks like he has no idea what she's talking about, and he's clearly just doing it to get a rise out of her again, so Jane doesn't comment on it.

"Like some ideas as to what is causing this," she suggests. "Real ones that don't involve any backhanded insults directed at me."

He grins. "Now when have I ever done that?"

"You want a list?" He grins wider.

"I am more interested in why you think I would know something," he says, stepping away from the wall and around her table. "Didn't you once state that I am 'as powerless as you are' in this situation?"

She shrugs, still not taking the bait. "Doesn't mean you can't have an idea. You're from a place full of magic and you've been alive for how long? In all that time you must have met someone who has the kind of power it takes to do… this."

Loki chuckles and it only unnerves her a little.

"Quite a presumptuous little thing, aren't you?" he asks.

"No, I'm a scientist," Jane replies. "Now please just answer the question."

She'd be lying if she said there wasn't a thrill to bossing around a god (or a supposed one at any rate). Judging from the look on his face, he wants to kill her for it. That lessens it, but not by much. Jane isn't sure where this unending bout of confidence is coming from; she just knows on some level that he isn't going to hurt her. He may want to, just like she may want to use her endless time to slowly construct some kind of laser beam that'll erase him from existence, but such ideas will never leave their minds They can't possibly in her case, but that's beside the point.

Loki has walked behind her in his aimlessness. She turns to see him watching her from behind, nostrils flaring. He rests his hands, palms down, on the table.

"I know what you are alluding to," he says. His eyes are piercing through her very soul and tearing apart the side of her that wants to stay strong. Jane holds on to what threads she can to keep herself standing, telling herself that soon, he won't be able to do this anymore. "And you are wrong, Jane Foster."

Jane narrows her eyes. She can play this game. "How can you be so sure?"

He bares his teeth, in a way that reminds her of the previous cycle, when he wore a similar predatory look right before his mouth disappeared between her legs. That is  _not_  something Jane wants to start associating with his 'evil' face. She starts to mentally list all the known constellations in the spring and summer months as fast as she can and almost misses his answer.

"You speak of a power that goes beyond even the All-Father," he says ominously. "Beyond that of the one who gave me the power I wield. Power over the flow of time is a gift reserved only for a being more ancient than the darkness this universe was born from. I can tell you for a fact that Chronos is far too knowledgeable of the devastation abusing his power could create, and so if you believe him to be involved, I'd advise you to think again."

"Well why should I?" Jane asks as she slides off the table. "You said it yourself, Chronos is the only one who… wait, did you say  _Chronos_?"

"Are you hard of hearing, Jane Foster?"

"No," she snaps, but spewing venom at him won't get her anywhere, so she dials it back. "I'm just surprised. I mean- we are talking about  _the_ Chronos, right?"

"I am not aware of another," Loki says, as if that tells her anything.

"The Greeks worshipped Chronos as the master of time," she explains, though from the look of him she suspects he already knows that. "And I know that Asgard turned out to be real, but I guess I never imagined that…  _others_ could be out there."

Loki hums and crosses one leg over the other. His hands go into pockets she didn't know he did in that jacket… thing that he wore.

"I suppose now you'll want to know how many of their deities are true to life," he says. Jane wishes she could retort, but he's not wrong. "Most of them are not. The so-called pantheon consisted of a single lecherous fool playing the role of a king and bringing several of his siblings into his twisted games. He is long dead, as are his peers. The last to survive was Athena, and she left to parts unknown shortly after their deaths and has never returned."

"The Olympians died," Jane tries to wrap her head around it. Even being a (mostly) rational thinker, it feels like an oxymoron no matter how she tries to look at it. All life must at some point end, and if the Greek gods were really real, what are the odds of them being truly immortal? She must have heard too many stories as a child. They're influencing her reasoning.

"How did they die?" she asks. Knowing might help her understand it, or it might just be one more thing that throws her for a loop.

"War, mostly," he says nonchalantly as he examines an old microscope with the focus knobs broken off. "Their claims at Godhood notwithstanding, most of them were useless on the battlefield. That is how Athena came out alive. She was the Goddess of War to the Greeks for one very good reason."

"I thought Athena didn't like to fight."

"Of course you do," Loki says. "They all did, just as she wanted."

Jane opens her mouth, but she has nothing to say to that, and so she just nods and that's good enough.

"Okay, now about Chronos." She pulls herself back on the table. "You say that he's the only one you know of with the power to control time."

"He  _is_  the only one," Loki says.

"That you  _know_ of," Jane counters.

"Why are you so persistent?" Loki turns away from her, prompting her to run after him.

"Well, you're kind of taking me in circles with this, Loki," she says through her pants. It's really not fair that he's so tall and his legs are so long. For every three steps she takes, he's taken one. "You tell me that Chronos is the only one who can do this, and then you tell me it isn't him. First of all, how do you even know that?"

"Because he has no reason to place a curse on me," says Loki. "Let alone drag in a mortal woman of no great import. I have met him a grand total of once in my lifetime, and I was a boy then. We hardly even spoke."

"You sure about that?" Jane asks flatly. "You seem like the kind of guy who's pissed off enough people to fill a country."

Loki chuckles.

"And forgive me if I'm not satisfied with the idea of this being a completely random thing, or some kind of fucked-up way of teaching us both a lesson like we're Bill Murray."

"Like we're whom?" Loki asks.

Jane shakes her head. "No one, just an actor. He did a movie once- a movie, it's like pictures that move-"

"I know what a movie is," Loki says, giving her a withering look.

"Right," Jane's eyes flick to the side. "He played a character who got caught in a repeating day like us. It's a pretty well-known movie."

"And how did this Bill Murray free himself?"

Jane hesitates, long enough that Loki notices. "Well ah… he ends it by spending the day helping people and getting the woman he loves to return his feelings."

"And what caused it in the first place?"

"They never say. It's a mystery."

Loki groans and rubs the bridge of his nose. Jane is pretty sure she can see veins popping out of his temples.

"But now that I think about it," she says. "There was supposed to be a scene where it turned out to be an angry ex-girlfriend putting a curse on him."

"Oh, now there's a sound theory," Loki snorts. "Finally, you say something worthy of the brilliant scientist you so love claiming to be."

"Fuck off," Jane whispers. She doesn't take his hearing into account, especially when he's right next to her, and with the tightening of his hand on her arm, she knows she's about to pay for it.

"Did you say something?" he hisses, enunciating each word like his cutting through them with a knife.

Jane jerks her arm away, but he's stronger than that.

"I asked if any of the stories are true," she says, rattling off the first thing that comes to her and then gritting her teeth when she's done. Off all the things she could have brought up, why  _that_?

"Stories?" he lets the word roll off his tongue.

"Yeah, you know myths. The ones they tell about you," she elaborates.

He licks his lips. It's not meant to be seductive, but Jane finds herself staring at his mouth regardless. Would it be unwise at this juncture to accuse him of using some kind of hypnosis on her?

"Which story were you thinking?"

Jane racks her brains, only to find that her general knowledge of Norse mythology is woefully limited. She should have taken more time to study after Thor left, and while she was sober. Her first thought is the one about him and Thor dressing as women to get the hammer back, but Loki has handily debunked that one already. It triggers memories of the many Loki-centric stories she read and enjoyed under the influence of booze.

"I should tell you first," he says suddenly, in either one more instance of him reading her mind or her being too outwardly expressive. "Any and all accounts of myself having…  _relations_  with objects or animals- especially horses- are completely false. Are we clear?"

 _'We're certainly defensive,'_  Jane thinks. She throws her hand up in mock-salute. "As crystal."

"What do crystals have to do with this?" he asks genuinely.

Jane swallows back a snigger. "I mean yes, I understand."

She gives a smile that her mother used to describe as her 'I'm a cute girl' smile. It got her what she wanted as a child almost always. Here, it just gets Loki to stop glaring daggers at her. She still counts that as a success. He goes off muttering about never dying and people still laughing behind his back. Jane has to wait a while for him to finish pitying himself. In that time, she finds an old magazine lodged in between some textbooks. It's just her luck that the whole thing is in Norwegian. At least the photos are pretty.

"Is there anything else you need clarification on?"

Something about his resigned tone of voice is very humorous to Jane, although not really in a 'haha' sort of way. It puts her at ease and allows her to think clearly about that big picture book Erik once showed her and the impish little man meant to represent the one before her.

"How about the one where you cut Sif's hair," she says, one hand on her chin.

"You met Sif, did you not?" Loki asks. "Did she appear bald to you?"

"And  _then_ ," Jane loudly continues, "you had to go and make her a new head of hair with the help of the dwarves, in the process picking up some other nice treasures for Asgard."

"Hmmm…" Loki says. "Your people do come up with creative tales."

"So it's not true," Jane infers.

"I didn't say that." Loki puts one hand up. "Do not jump to conclusions. It so happens that there is some truth to this tale, though only just. What really happened was that Sif was an exceedingly proud child, with golden hair unlike any other woman in Asgard. She loved to boast about it to whoever would listen. I grew weary of her vanity and decided to bring her down a few pegs. One night, I used a spell to dye her hair my color while she slept. My original intent was that it last only a few days before wearing off, just to teach her a lesson. The magic was more potent than I realized, however, and the spell became permanent."

He stops talking, but Jane still waits, thinking there might be more. The way he left it off, it sounds like there is. Sif must have reacted somehow, screaming or crying or beating Loki up. That last one calls forth a highly amusing mental image of Loki as a scrawny child being picked on by a little girl several inches taller than him. She brushes it aside before her stupid face can give her away.

"Is that all?" she asks.

"Are you disappointed?"

"No," Jane says, trying to find the right words for what she feels. "Not really. I mean, compared to the myth, that story is kind of…"

"Plebeian?" Loki says.

"That's one word for it," Jane shrugs.

Loki takes a single step, and now he's close enough to touch her. Jane wasn't even consciously are he was so close until now. She can see that the nail marks she left on his neck last night are gone, no surprises there.

"You'll find that fact is not always stranger than fiction, Jane Foster," he says like it's something deeply philosophical, which it could be if spoken by literally anyone else. "It's especially true when the fiction is so extraordinary. Sometimes, the facts are little more than mundane."

Most likely left unsaid is how happy he would be to dismantle every single word in the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda. If Jane had copies lying around, she might have just forked them over along with half a dozen red pens and let him go to town.

"You said you don't have kids," she says. "The other night when I was… indisposed."

He smirks.

"Yes, it's a shame that I am not the father of a world devouring snake and the queen of the dead, isn't it?"

When he puts it that way, it really does sound ridiculous. Jane is almost embarrassed to have brought it up.

"What about Thor?" she asks. When his expression sours, she goes on to add: "I know he's not really married to Sif, but do any of them have children?"

"And here we see one very good example of why you are lucky you didn't fall for Thor's charms," Loki says mockingly.

Jane makes a face. Technically, she  _did_  fall for his charms (and she dares any heterosexual woman or gay man on the planet not to), not that Loki needs to be corrected on that.

"I'll take that as a no."

"Take it as my assurance that putting Thor in charge of an infant is roughly akin to inviting dark elves to a banquet on friendly terms."

"Okay, that comparison doesn't make any sense to me," Jane says, making sure to speak firmly like she's not outright admitting that what he's said is flying over her head. "Why should I take any of your 'assurances' at face value anyway?"

He lifts one shoulder and one corner of his mouth. "You've taken my word thus far."

He gives Jane a lopsided grin when she fails to come up with a snappy comeback in time. Truthfully, she's developing a rather icky feeling in her head that's destined to become a full blown migraine somewhere down the line. The longer they do this, the fast that time will come, and yet her curiosity is only growning.

"What about Baldr?" she asks next.

"What about him?" Loki is distracted again, this time by some half-erased equations on an old blackboard that he is tsking at.

"You know what," Jane says exasperatedly. "The story says that he became invincible because he had visions of his death and then-"

"And then I had him killed by the one thing that was capable of taking his life- a very deadly sprig of mistletoe!"

He really is good at making it sound like the storytellers of old were all on crack-cocaine, not that that's hard.

"So that one's not true either?"

"Not at all."

"Okay, so what's the real story?"

"There isn't one. It's complete fiction, right down to the starring character."

Jane blinks. "You mean Baldr's not a real person?"

Loki doesn't answer, likely because he thinks what he's given her says it all, and it does, even if it lacks straightforwardness.

"Shall we skip further tedium and just assume that everything written about myself and my people is untrue and move on?"

Jane shrugs. "I don't know… what about Sigyn. Is she real?"

She doesn't know what prompted her to bring that up. It might've been lingering in the back of her mind ever since he agreed to this relationship (if one could call it that) that she was potentially making herself a homewrecker and there was some beautiful goddess waiting for Loki back in Asgard while he messed around with her. She never dwelled on the matter, but now that it's in the forefront of her mind, she can't stop thinking it. She knows what it's like to lose the man you love to outside circumstances. Though at least she couldn't say it was because he found another woman more attractive than her (no, instead it was 24 hour shifts and MRI scans that were better than her).

Not helping at all is the effect her words have on Loki, which is almost immediate. He freezes up, knuckles going white around the edge of the table. A large crack develops in the middle, branches off to a million different places like a tree taking root.

"Loki?" Jane asks tentatively. Some part of her wants to apologize, but that feels too much like bowing her head to him in submission. She's always been far too stubborn for her own good, as Erik would say.

Loki spins around, moving swiftly and silently like there is no floor under his feet, and Jane's heart leaps into her throat.

"You have no reason to be concerned, Jane Foster," he says in a tight voice. "She is real, but she is nothing to me, as I am nothing to her. It has been so since our engagement was broken centuries ago, and since then I have not seen her."

He walks away as Jane relieves herself of the built up oxygen she'd been holding in. She thinks she's being pre-emptive with it. She has no way of knowing that he's telling the truth, and he very well may not be. He never did answer her question about his 'assurances.' He had only  _sounded_  honest. Surely the 'god of lies' knew how to feign honesty.

Jane wanted to believe him though, if only to assuage her own conscience. She never knew she could be capable of such selfishness. Living in a time loop sure brought out the worst in people.

 _'Yeah, but you're standing in a room with a guy who's trying to take over the planet,'_  says her comforting inner voice.  _'You are hardly the worst person around.'_

Jane lets it talk in her ear until her heart rate goes back to normal and she can breathe easy. Loki's next target of lackluster interest is the window, which is half covered by the ascending curve of the hill this observatory is built on and otherwise shows a sliver of blue ocean water. Okay, now he's just doing this to bother her.

Jane strolls over with her hands in her pockets, deliberate in her movements.

"Why did you break up?" she asks to get his attention.

"That is a story for another day, Jane Foster," he answers without looking.

"Why do you keep calling me by my full name like that?"

"Because your first name alone is far too plain to be remembered." Again, he is immobile when he speaks. "Not that your last name is any better, but together they provide a memory. Now are you finished asking inane questions or shall we move on?"

Jane purses her lips. A more childish version of her would have also crossed her arms and given him a few hours of the silent treatment. She's not that little girl anymore, the only thing she's retained from her is a severe dislike for being patronized, be it by a stranger or the person she was… consorting with, let's say.

He goes on ignoring her while she fumes (she didn't believe for a second that he wasn't intentionally fanning the flames), knowing that he was getting to her little by little. It's like she's just a plaything to him that he can use to stave off boredom. Does he even care about finding a way out of this?

 _'You're the one who's been interrogating him all this time,_ ' says the other not-comforting voice in her head.

 _'He egged me on!_ ' she argues with it.

_'You let him.'_

Jane stops upon realizing that fighting with oneself is the epitome of pathetic. Whether or not Loki still gives a fuck what she's doing doesn't matter. At the rate this is going, she'll have descended into giggling insanity by what would have been the end of the week.

"So we're finished then?"

Jane starts at Loki's voice, loud enough that he could be standing right beside her with his mouth on her ear. He's still at the window, though, not even turned around. She scowls at his dark form, only to scream when it shimmers and becomes transparent, and another, more solid Loki puts his hands on her shoulders.

"Now now," he says to her. The other him disappears into thin air while Jane hyperventilates. "No need to be alarmed. It's only me."

"Yeah, well is another you going to walk through the door in a minute?" she cries.

"Do you want one to?"

Growling, Jane rips away from him, and he lets her go without a fight. What he doesn't do is let her walk away from him. Whatever direction she walks, he's right behind her and she can't shake him off. Damn those legs…

"Another one of your cute little magic tricks, huh?" she spits over her shoulder.

He feigns offense. "It's far more than just a trick."

"How do I even know you're really you right now?"

"There is one way to find out for sure," he answers with a lecherous grin that is decidedly un-sexy given the circumstances.

"You wish," Jane says. She gives up trying to get rid of him and sits down at a random table with a busted leg propped up with what appears to be a reinforced hockey stick. Boy would she love to know the story behind that one.

As soon as her butt hits the seat, pain shoots up her back. She covers it with more talking, even though she's just rambling nonsensically at this point.

"Seems like not only am I never going to have a real conversation with you without any trick questions or double entendres, and now I have to worry that I'm going to accidentally walk through you or we're going to be in bed and suddenly there will be two of you. It's bad enough that you can transform into me and turn your skin blue, but now it's-"

His hand shoots out, taking her wrist in a vice-like grip. It's not like the other times he's done this. He shows no care in making her comfortable; his nails are razor sharp and drawing blood. Jane gasps, but he forces her up, makes her look him in the eye, and in them she sees the most primal kind of rage.

_"What did you just say?"_

_**_

_Loki Laufeyson_

She had seen him.

When in all the layers of Helheim had she  _seen_ him?

He hadn't shown her. Never would he do such a thing of his own free will. To peel back the layers of the lie he's lived and let a total strange bear witness was unthinkable. He couldn't have possibly made such a tremendous error without at least awareness of it. Loki goes back to their previous meetings. They are few and fresh in mind. Their second encounter and official introduction began with a literal bang, his mind and his magic out of control as he intimidated her into confessing her involvement. He'd never tell her this, but she could have easily died that day, and that she was, for a single moment in time, lucky that her life was preserved by this repetition. Anything could have happened with him releasing so much power. He could have turned her entire bedroom into dust, the whole observatory even. He could have incinerated her body, flayed her alive, drained the blood from her veins without breaking the skin. He's tempted to do all those things right now, if it will only get her to stop looking at him like that.

"What are you doing? Let go," she demands, frantic fingers digging into his palm and gaining no traction. In a better state of mind, it would be hilarious. She is using all the strength she has in her puny body and getting nowhere.

He shakes her once. He has to be careful not to speak again after that one biting question that she will not answer if she knows what is good for her. He's falling into the same hole he did on their second meeting. The very cold that he fears and loathes could start creeping up at any time, triggered by his rage.

It hits him then like a bolt of lightning. His eyes bug out. Jane Foster has no idea why that is; it fuels her state of alarm and strengthens her need to flee from him. Like a deer from a wildcat.

"Let me go!" she says in a more powerful voice that is still laced with fear that he can smell on her.

And then he does. His fingers slacken, life leaving them in a flash. Her smooth white skin is marred by a handprint, dark enough to appear as a bruise but not severe enough to stay that way for long. It's already fading by the time Jane Foster has 'stealthily' run around the table to put some meager distance between them. She backs further away against the next table, holding her arms taut as she puts them up in surrender, but he sees her shaking. She's all too obvious.

"Okay, did I say something wrong?" she sounds a bit more high-pitched than normal. "I wasn't trying to offend you or anything, so if you could just…"

He stops listening. What's she's already said tells him enough about how this is going to continue. Jane Foster will push him, now that he's aroused her interest. She doesn't have proper responses to fear. She'd rather run at danger than run from it like a sane individual, and she knows that there is nothing he can do to her. Not physically anyway.

What she doesn't know is how much he can do to her _mentally_ , damage so great that no level of time resetting could repair it. At the drop of a hat, he could take her pliable human mind in his hand and mold it, tear it about at the seams and destroy everything that made Jane Foster who she was. An empty husk would be all that was left, and then Loki would have to suffer no more dealings with her.

He'd be alone once again.

All alone.

"Loki?"

His name is spoken softer than ever before. Jane Foster has regained some nerve and now crosses the barrier between them. There is questioning on her lips, driving Loki further into his panic. He knows she will ask again. Her trepidation around him will wane and then she will be confident again, and she will press him for details.

He'll just have to silence her.

Jane Foster almost screams when Loki throws the table aside and it breaks on contact with the floor. He claims her lips before she can get it out. She still releases a few muffled protests, forcing Loki to go easier than his instincts demand of him. He coaxes her lips apart, moving his tongue slowly and deliberately around the deep cavern of her mouth. His hands crawl below her shirt and cup her breasts, only to find that there is some other type of cloth blocking him. Loki groans in annoyance, banishing it with a quick willed thought. Jane Foster gasps, first at the sudden cold air and then again when Loki pinches her nipples. It's taking a fathomless amount of willpower to keep up the seduction game and not just take her like some kind of barbarian, so much so that Loki can hardly believe it. He can't remember the last time he's so desperately craved a woman's touch, much less a mortal's.

Jane Foster is no less taken aback by his actions. Her cries have devolved into lustful moans, and she only sounds angry again when she is unable to tug the outer armor from his body. With lazy motions, Loki transports them up the stairs to her room in front of the bed. He picks her up like she's made of tissue paper and drops her on it. She's unclothed the second she hits the bed; himself soon after. From there, it's safe to say that there are no thoughts of magic to be found in Jane Foster's head.

The aftermath is as strained as it ever is. He doesn't hang off the bed to get away from her this time, but he makes guarded efforts not to touch her with his hands. She helps by turning on her side away from him, the blanket firmly enclosed around her shoulders.

"So what was that all about?" she asks.

"Hmmm?"

"Don't 'hm' me," she slides out of bed with her body still covered. Why she bothers when he's already seen all that she has to offer and then some, he doesn't know. "I know you didn't start all that because you're just so in love with me and can't resist. In fact, I'm pretty sure this has something to do with what we were talking about before. Am I right?"

 _'You'll be dead if you don't shut up,'_  he thinks and almost means. It seems he was wrong about her thought process under his ministrations. It had not been as dilapidated as he wanted.

"Why is it so important to you?" he asks, smirking devilishly at her answering scowl. "Was I not performing to your satisfaction as I have in the past?"

"That's not the issue here, Loki. And anyway, who says you've been that good at all?" She turns and whips her hair around, a poor attempt at seeming aloof.

Loki gives her a very serious, penetrating look and Jane Foster falters.

"Well… whatever, we have way more important things to discuss. Stop trying to distract me." She walks to the bathroom and slams the door with some of the sheet sticking out. Inside, he can hear shuffling and various explicit words directed at him, some of which he only knows to be such from the tone of her voice. It expands his knowledge of Midgardian swears by an order of a magnitude, though most of it is terribly uncreative.

"So what are these 'important things?'" he asks when she comes out, just before she grabs some clothes from the dresser and goes right back in to change.

"We'll talk in a minute," she shouts back. "Really talk. No more distractions."

Loki's lips curl into an evil smirk. Oh no, she should not have said that to him. Not at all.

As soon as she's out of the bathroom, fully dressed in sensible pants and a button up top, she opens her mouth to speak and instead receives Loki's kiss.

"I hate you," she tells him another hour later when they are back in bed, naked with out-of-control hair and the shredded remains of her clothes scattered about like confetti. "I really,  _reeeally_  hate you."

Loki has his hands behind his head with his top half uncovered, and he smirks. "You seemed to like me just fine a few moments ago."

"And that just makes me hate you more."

Loki rolls his eyes, his fingers inching for hers under the bedspread. His touch is like a shock to the system for her. She bolts out of bed and runs across the room, pulling the blankets with her and leaving him none.

"Oh no," she is saying all the while. "Oh no, no way. No more! I rescind your right to touch me until we talk."

She presses herself flat against the wall, arms out, blanket loose around her body. She seems completely ignorant of how nude she has left Loki on the mattress. Sensing how serious she is, and though it makes his blood boil to give in to her wishes in any way, Loki magicks a pair of loose pants on himself, leaving the rest of him bare.

"Now, now, Jane Foster," he says in a soft voice. "Might we be reasonable here?"

"Reasonable?" she shrieks. "You're talking to me about being  _reasonable_?"

She storms over to the dresser and snatches out a single article of clothing. She's only in the restroom for thirty seconds this time and come out in a boxy knee-length nightgown that does her figure no favors. Loki eyes it distastefully. If there was anything she owned that could ruin the mood, that was it, and from the pleased look on her face, he'd wager that that was the point.

"Now we're going to talk," she says firmly, hands on her hips. "We're going to talk or you can just leave. I want to know what is wrong with you. This whole thing started when I was talking about your powers, so was it something I said then?"

Loki's eyes narrow. "I think you should worry more about what you are saying  _now_ , Jane Foster, and how it might be in your best interest to stop."

She seems to sense the impending danger; not nearly as strongly as she should, though. She trembles lightly before him and then forces herself into a state of calm.

"Is it something secret?" she asks. Then she performs an even greater act of audacity by coming back to the bed and sitting down. Loki simply can't believe her. Did she not hear what he just said to her? Even if he doesn't really mean it, she can't possibly know that. "If it is, just tell me."

"Are you saying you would let the matter go if I did?"

She hesitates for a moment, but it's long enough for Loki that the eventual inclination of her head means nothing to him. He laughs to himself. He feels her growing tense, like she's finally getting the point of how foolishly she's acting. Well, it's too late now.

"No, no you wouldn't," he says. "You're a  _scientist_ after all. You live to question things, to take risks."

"Loki-"

"Well, you've taken quite the leap of faith, throwing your lot in with me. Perhaps I  _should_  tell you the truth. You should know just what kind of monster you've allowed into your life, into your  _bed_."

He gets up. He has to move fast before he comes back to his senses and leaves her. Already, the ice cold that lives in the very core of his being is spreading, freezing his blood and peeling all the lies away, leaving behind a horrible truth for her viewing pleasure. Yes, his deranged mind thinks, let her see. Let her know everything, all that he is. Let her see the monster.

Let her hate him like all the rest.

_**  
Jane Foster_

She can never let him know how terrified she was. In those few seconds between him declaring himself a monster and taking steps to prove it, Jane was shellshocked. Not a single part of her would move no matter how many signals her brain fired, assuming it was still capable that.

It's funny that it took her so long to get to this point. Before now, she'd been running on the general assumption that he wouldn't hurt her. Even though she knows what he could do to her with just a snap of his fingers, and Jane is kicking herself for pushing him this hard. She doesn't know what he's about to turn into, but the change is happening even before it's visible. The air around them grows colder. The thermostat on the wall confirms that it's not just Jane's imagination. The temperature has gone down twenty degrees in just a few seconds. He stays relaxed all through it, as color seeps into his flesh and raised markings form all along his face, arms and torso. When he opens his eyes again, they are as blood red as the day he first appeared in this room and demanded answers from her. One hand is on the wall and ice shoots up, down and all around. He exhales and she can see his breath.

"You see now?" he asks gravely.

Jane takes a deep breath herself and steps away from the bed, nearer to him. Her fingers twitch, but she dares not touch him. Who know if she won't freeze over just like that wall? Still, those shapes etched into his skin are absolutely fascinating, erasing all the fear that had plagued her until now.

"That's it?"

A moment passes, followed by another. It's enough time for Jane to realize that wasn't the right thing to say just before he reacts to it.

 _"Excuse me?"_  He shouts. "Have you taken leave of your senses? Do you not  _see_  me?"

"I do," Jane says defensively and far too much so at that. "I mean… well, you're blue. And your eyes are red, which is scary… I guess when you said you were a monster I was expecting something like tentacles or a second head or…"

She rubs her neck sheepishly, trying to avert her eyes from him as he struggles to understand what she's saying and possibly short circuits in the process. The problem then becomes those marking that draw attention to his body. They swirl along his chest and stomach in intricate forms that she can't help following. The blue skin accentuates his physique, making his muscles seem more defined than even when she's touching them… oh god, why does he have to be so damn gorgeous anyway? Even like this.  _Especially_  like this! It isn't fair.

The sheer frustration of it all is what finally allows Jane to look away. He's still in the corner of her eye whichever way she turns. She sees him watching her, mouth agape, but she dares not give into temptation until he has turned away, muttering nonsensically to himself as the color slowly disappears. Jane is somewhat disappointed. There are so many questions she has that she doubts he would ever answer. Whatever makes him like this, it's quite clear that he loathes that part of himself.

He makes it even clearer when he screams and throws his arms out, making her desk, dresser and closet explode. All of Jane's belongings fly out and land everywhere, while Loki himself seethes like a caged tiger. Then he's gone in the blink of an eye and that's the last Jane will see of him for several days. Until then, she spends her time sneaking into the computer lab doing as much research as possible on time travel, greek mythology pertaining to Chronos, and- following an on a whim google search brings her to an eye opening article on Yggdrasil- a realm far below that of Asgard and even Midgard, said to be home to fiercely savage creatures feared by all who encountered them.

A realm called Jotunheim.

**  
 _Loki Laufeyson_

It takes a few tries to get back to his underground hideaway. He's far too enraged to concentrate on where he is going. First he frightens to death a group of elderly women with knitting needles, then he confuses a hoard of drunks sitting around a campfire, which one of them is attempting to relieve himself in while the others laugh. Finally, he is back in his quiet little hole to spend the rest of the night until he is again woken up by that insipid little man and forced to face one more meaningless cycle alone. There is no way he is going back to Jane Foster tomorrow, not after that.

He doesn't know why she insisted on hiding her revulsion of him. Putting up a wall of indifference was clever, but not for someone with his experience. She couldn't even look at him in the end, she was so disgusted. Does she think he couldn't tell?

Loki drops into the alcove where he takes his rest, though sleep is the last thing on his mind. He crosses his arms and tries to force Jane Foster's face away. To replace it, he imagines all the things he will do once this repetition is broken and he is a free man again. Now that he knows the proper method for victory against the so-called Avengers, taking over the rest of the world will be simple. True, there could be others out there with extraordinary abilities, but they would be no match for his power and cunning. He's fought and won a thousand wars in the name of Asgard, and now he will win the most important of them all in his name, and only his.

But then, what of Jane Foster, he thinks. She is the only one who knows as much as he does. Once this is over, surely she will do everything in her power to warn Thor of his coming. The most sensible thing would be to kill her, of course. Loki isn't too fond of it, though. She'd make a much better slave. He could take her mind as he did her precious mentor and use her to torment Thor. That sounds like a far more enjoyable route to take.

Loki closes his eyes, playing with the image of Thor, bound in chains and watching helplessly as his beloved bows before her new king, a mindlessly content smile on her face. How perfect it would be.

He opens his eyes, feeling much more alert and focused. It's a good thing, because he's right away aware of the fact that something is different about the place. Loki sits up, his ears peaked and searching for sound where there is none. Not that there would be as he turned all of his underlings away this morning, but there should at least be something; a dripping pipe or a scampering rat's feet. It's all been muted.

Loki licks his lips. He walks all around the abandoned lab and the suitcase pushed under a desk that holds the tesseract. He can feel the power pushing at him, proving that it has not been taken and giving him at least one less thing to worry about. There is nothing in sight that could cause the disturbance, but he knows better than to go on that alone.

"Someone there?" he calls out. In one hand, a dagger materializes. "Come out from wherever you are hiding please. I would like to have a word with you."

He feels around magically for another presence. The air is thick as if right before a battle. Loki hasn't been this on guard since he was in Thanos's realm.

Something snaps behind him and he spins, the dagger flies from his hands and melts away as he sees-

Himself.

His reflection stares back at him like one of his clones, and more form all around it, one after the other. Dozens of full length mirrors stand up and form a circle. The reflective surfaces are as clean and real looking as reality itself. Loki turns every which way and finds no opening. He reaches for another dagger and his stomach drops when one does not come. He tries again, but the magic he so heavily relies on is blocked by an indeterminable force. Breaking it is impossible, as Loki quickly discovers. It bounces back any attack he makes on it, leaving him weaker and more exhausted with every failed attempt.

_'It's a terrible feeling, is it not? To be powerless… To have nothing…'_

Loki stills. He hears the voice but it cannot be so, because it is right in his ear, and he sees in all of the oppressive mirrors that he is alone in this chamber.

 _'Are you confused?'_  it says.  _'Do you not see?_ '

White lights appear, blinding him. Loki shields his eyes but it is a fruitless action. The light literally scalds him, and as he falls to his knees, writhing in pain, the voice speaks to him one more time.

_'Do you want to see?'_

The light blinks out as fast as it arrived. Loki bursts into the air, his magic comes crashing back to him and he embraces it. He searches for the source of it and the voice, knives at the ready. Instead, he sees scientists and soldiers hustling to get the tesseract ready for transport, Erik Selvig watching over their progress from in front of the truck, and his good old friend ready to greet him at the start of a brand new day.

"Sir, we're ready to go."


	10. Days 25- 65

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crashes through window with chapter in hand* I'M HERE! I'M HERE! I GOT IT! EVERYTHING IS OKAY NOW! *faints*
> 
> Oh boy, am I glad to have this chapter done. It was supposed to be an easy one, you know? Just a simple transitional chapter bringing things up to date with the prologue so we can move on to more important things. I don't know if it's me or if it's just the Lokidayverse!Loki and Jane in my head that insist on being difficult (and horny), but man...
> 
> Anyway, I hope you can forgive me for taking so long to post this. I can't say when the next chapter will be up (much as I wish I could), but I'm trying to get into the swing of writing a little bit of this story each day while still working bit by bit on my other in-progress fics. Hopefully, that'll work towards getting the next chapter out much faster. We're getting closer to scenes I've been dying to write, so while I'm kicking my ass into gear, enjoy the new chapter!
> 
> PS: there is sex in this chapter. A lot of sex. You have been warned.

_Day 25: Loki Laufeyson_

He's stayed away for too long.

But it's only been three days, he reminds himself.

You mean the  _equivalent_ of three days, says a new voice that sounds vaguely (and infuriatingly) like Jane Foster.

He squashes that one down for a number of reasons: to call semantics a non-issue at this point would be a charity, and Jane Foster's voice is shrill enough on its own without his subconscious mind needing to emulate it.

He's steered clear of her these past few days, completely and totally. Not even a shadow of his presence follows her in her day-to-day activities. She could be anywhere for all he knows, and yet he is not the least bit surprised to find her back in that decaying lab, under a mountain of books, with a half ruined green board covered in numbers. However she wants to describe it, Jane Foster is tenacious to a foolhardy degree. She is blind to her own limitations. It makes him sorry that she and Thor will never be, they seem so perfect for each other.

At the moment, her research has been exchanged for a steaming cup that she drinks deeply from. Whatever that beverage is, he can smell it from here. It doesn't seem like something that warrants such enthusiasm. Loki's magic closes the door she's left ajar, the one he never walked through in the first place. Her head turns slowly as she lowers the cup. Nothing of the wariness he knows is plaguing her goes past her eyes. She's lost that capability. Her skin has its healthy, if pale, lacquer. Her hair is lightly tousled from bed. Whatever it is about her appearance that has him watching her long enough to notice all this is beyond him. Perhaps he isn't sleeping enough.

He takes a chair beside her, hands in his lap as she finishes her drink, and he memorizes the number and length of the cracks crawling along the ceiling. At ten minutes past, he glances at Jane and smiles.

"It's a pleasure to see you too."

Jane Foster pushes off the counter and walks to the very end of the room. She presses her head to the wall. The chilly surface would soothe an aching skull for all of five seconds, but he doubts that is her reason. Her shoulders draw together, a long stream of air releasing from her mouth.

"When I was in second grade, my class had this pet." She walks back to him, hands in her pockets. "It was a fish, a… actually, I don't remember what kind of fish it was. We called him Mavis, and at the end of each week, one of us got to take Mavis home over the weekend and take care of him until Monday. When my turn came, I didn't tell my mom. I'd been asking for a pet for a long time, and she always said I was too young to be responsible for one. I wanted to prove her wrong."

She stops in front of him, her head bowed in wistful recollection.

"The problem was that I really had no clue how to take care of a fish at all. My only experience with animals up to that point was the two dogs my cousins up north owned. I didn't release that you couldn't feed a fish the way you feed a dog," she laughs to herself, like it's only funny in how unfunny it is. "The first night, I dumped half the bottle of fish food into the bowl. The next morning, I went to check on him. All the food was floating at the top of the bowl, and so was Mavis." She clicks her tongue. "I was traumatized. I mean it, I cried for days. I never asked for a pet again. To this day, I don't think I could handle one. That's not even getting into what the other kids did to me. We got a new fish right away, but they never let me forget it, right up to summer break."

He doesn't know what that means, or what 'second grade' is, though he can infer from the rest of her tale that it has something to do with her schooling. He's certainly not going to ask.

"Fast forward to just before college graduation. I was at the top of my class, so me and the other top students were invited to this exclusive party for all the big names in my field. It was supposed to be a time to make friends in high places so you have better chances for funding later on. I wasn't doing so well on that end, but I did start a conversation with another graduate from a different school. He was a nice enough guy, more into astronomy than astrophysics, but after a while, I started to feel like I'd seen him somewhere before. I couldn't put my finger on it, then suddenly, he goes 'hey, were you in Mrs. Caville's second grade glass?' Turns out, he was in that class with me. In fact, he one of the worst of the bullies, and he moved away just before third grade, and suddenly, here he is again!"

In the time since she's started talking, she's gotten more to drink, and she pauses to take a sip, wiping the stains off her upper lip with her sleeve.

"And he told everyone there that night about it, and suddenly, I'm the butt of this great big joke that everyone is laughing at. To this day, I'll sometimes get emails from jokester professors asking for 'Captain Ahab.' I  _hate_  that book… and you know, I try to laugh it off, because it's been twenty five years almost, and I'm not seven years old anymore, but every time I think about it, I still want to dig myself a hole and never come out."

He half expects her to bow at the end, but her story has no grand finale (or beginning, or middle). On the final word, she bites her lip and takes up her mug, breathing deeply the scent of the nauseating liquid like she can actually stand it. Occasionally, she meets his gaze, never with a hint of emotion he can see. It's easier to come to his own conclusions, even as he is shaking his head at her.

"Why are you telling me this?"

She lifts one shoulder, and releases it just as fast.

"It's one of my biggest secrets," she says, the words a jumble in her mouth as the table become more interesting to her than him. "I figured since I know one of yours, you should know one of mine. It's only fair."

"So your thought was to equate your childhood negligence of a pet to my being a member of a race of savage monsters that would eat your entire race alive if given the chance."

It's a punch to the face in all but name and action. That it wears off fast both is and isn't a surprise. How many days must she have spent schooling herself to never bow to defeat? She'll need a few more, he'd wager.

"You make it sound even stupider than it was in my head."

Loki leaves soon after, without a show or parting word. It bothers him little that he will be going back the next day, and that there is no arguing with himself on that front. It's the hollowness in her final words that stays with him well into the night.

**

_Day 26_

She's drinking again. Really drinking, and he almost leaves right there.

"Good morning," she says. Her words and her steps are as steady as if she was sober, keeping him still for a few moments more.

"Good  _afternoon_ ," he responds.

Jane hums, tapping a finger on the side of her beer bottle. He thinks about asking where she got it, but alcohol that pitiful won't wet his parched throat for more than a second. Still, she catches his lingering eyes, and tilts it in his direction. Loki turns his shoulder in refusal, and she takes it back without a word. He doesn't know how much of it she's drank, only that it's her first, and inarguably her last for the day. Maybe forever if she's lucky.

"I wanted to apologize for yesterday."

He eyes her. "Is that so?"

It's a challenge, one she is eager to face. Her drink goes unfinished, the liquid sloshing around as it flies into the trash, leaving tiny droplets to form a path to the garbage can. Loki's eyes trace them until Jane Foster blocks his view, and commands attention with the mere force of her alcohol charged emotion.

"I mean it," she says. "It was stupid of me to think I could relate to you, when you've probably lived through all sorts of horrible tragedy and death, and I've spent most of my life alone with lab equipment. I wanted to cheer you up a little, but I guess I screwed that up."

She didn't do much of anything, he thinks. One day later and he barely remembers her story at all. Best to keep that one under wraps. She's much easier to deal with under the influence of guilt.

"This must be taking a lot of effort," he says.

"Not that much." Her good humor today is a little stronger, but true joy continues to evade.

Loki's eyes flick to the trash can. "It drove you back into the bottle."

"I'm not even drunk," she says defensively, and it's only now that they are standing so close that he can see the beginnings of disorientation fogging her perceptions.

"Are you sure?"

She opens her mouth, but stops short and re-thinks it. "Fine, I'm just tipsy enough to have, at one point, seriously considered giving you a blowjob as an apology."

He takes back everything he ever said or thought about her being mundane. The human race as a whole may still count, but Jane Foster, especially an inebriated Jane Foster, is a true diamond in the rough.

"Not anymore?" he asks, inserting more disappointment than he really feels, like she probably knew he would.

"I'm not that drunk," she says, smiling sweetly. "Or that sorry."

**

_Day 27_

Loki groans and throws his head back. He thinks and speaks words in a dialect he could've known since birth or made up on the spot. It's hard to say when Jane Foster's tongue is running up and down his shaft with hot, pulsing motions. Her hands on his balls are clumsy, but keen. That he is going so high is another reminder of just how long it's been since he knew a woman's touch, but that's a perk as much as it is a drawback.

She sucks harder, taking him in as far as she can and bobbing her head as the hands that steady her lose their strength and fall into limp, noodle-like appendages. When he comes, she holds steady, and takes it all in. Loki would have preferred it if she pulled away so he could see, but there is something undeniable about the way she forces it down and then falls on her side to catch her breath.

Loki can relate. He's never been happier for that cold and dirty table that seems to grow out of the floor and can't be moved to save a life. A sliver of shame slides through as he comes down, only to wither away and die under a mountain of disbelief that he could feel anything remotely negative about what just happened.

There had been many women in his youth; several man as well. All from the more beautiful realms of the nine, all for his pleasure and enjoyment. To say that Loki, in his youth, had been chaste was to say Thor had been cautious. Certainly, he had been inexperienced once. He'd needed to learn, and he'd learned well if he did say so himself. Never once had he heard a complaint from a bedfellow, verbal or otherwise.

A grin spreads on Jane Foster's face, now that she has control enough to think clearly.

"Not bad for a virgin, huh?"

Loki snorts. "You are hardly a virgin, Jane Foster."

"For that I was."

She meets him at eye level, so that he is inclined to draw himself up, even though his legs are still trembling. He masks it with cool indifference, the kind only Frigga had ever been able to see through.

"Well, you will learn," he says.

Jane rolls her eyes. The chalkboard is her obvious destination when she starts to turn away, but she's no match for his reflexes, and she finds herself locked tight in his grasp.

"What are you doing?" she demands, futilely trying to twist herself free.

Loki pulls her back, picks her up, and sits her on the table. He spreads her legs apart, ignoring her protests. A single finger to her lips is all it takes to silence them.

"Jane Foster, I am many things," he says, "you know a great deal of them already, but one thing I am  _not_  is a selfish lover."

He lowers his voice in that practiced way all women love; Jane Foster is no exception. She's shivering with delight long before Loki removes her pants and undergarments and covers her clit with his mouth.

**

_Day 29_

"I'm taking another look at those articles I showed you yesterday."

Jane Foster clicks away on her computer, moving with lightning speed from one page to another. She's very much in her element here, before a blinking screen. Just yesterday, she'd spent hours walking him through this 'laptop' of hers; how it was used, and each of the many programs she'd broken her back creating and installing. He thinks about telling her that he got all the information he'd ever need on her life's work ages ago, but at this juncture, bringing up Erik Selvig feels like a step backwards.

"Which ones?" he asks over the rim of his book. "I hope it's that science fiction encyclopedia again. That was  _fascinating_."

"You know, it's not really my fault time loops aren't supposed to exist," she snaps. "You want to complain? Take it up with basic common sense, assuming you have any."

"When are you going to admit that this is something your 'computer programs' are incapable of explaining?"

"Maybe when you start being useful and stop contradicting me no matter what I do!" she retorts. "Why are you even here if not to help me?"

Loki smirks lecherously.

"Don't answer that," Jane says, shoving her open palm in his face. "Just keep quiet."

"If I don't speak, then how can I help you?"

"By being quiet!"

"There's no need to shout, dearest."

**

_Day 35_

Loki pushes her against the wall, his hands roam all around the hot, sticky skin of her stomach. He feels her soft muscles, first with his fingers and then his tongue. He swirls circles over her belly button until she's gasping so hard he thinks he may have cut off her breathing entirely. Then he goes lower.

**

_Day 38_

"It's called a conscious time loop. The effects encompass time itself by resetting the conscious minds of everyone within its scope at the beginning of each new loop, excepting a conscious few immune to the reversal-"

"-for reasons unexplained beyond a theoretical concept that the phenomena revolves around them," Loki interrupts both her speech and his reading to engage her in yet another heated stare. Her worthless scribbling skids to a halt, and if that jagged line didn't tear the page in half, removing it surely will.

"Oh, so you  _are_  listening," she says with feigned approval. "Glad to hear it."

"It's more a creeping suspicion that this is a conversation we've had before. Am I wrong?"

She grips her pen so tightly that it breaks in half.

"If you'd actually been  _listening_ , you'd know that we're starting from the beginning again, because my last experiment… failed."

She grumbles in the face of Loki's grinning, but if she thinks that will dissuade him, then she has no idea what she's dealing with.

"Ah yes, a dismal failure if I remember correctly. Still, watching your little friends lose their sensibilities once the power went out made for some quality entertainment."

She lets out a hard, tired sigh.

"Were you aware that this facility came complete with cell blocks?"

"No," Jane says bluntly, and Loki pouts at her and her disregard for the silver linings that cloud held. "And I still wouldn't be if you'd- you know-  _helped me_?!"

"Oh really now, I've spent many a night in lockup, and most others underground in the dirt. Am I complaining?"

Her response is that gesture again. This time, she doesn't have the benefit of alcohol to keep him at bay. Loki grabs her, her hesitance is non-existent when their lips crash together, and the control Loki thought he'd have no trouble exerting is challenged. Jane pushes into him, her hands tracing the lines of his stomach and chest. His armor removed, a thin tunic is all that separates her nails from his skin, but it won't stay that way for long. Their fight continues this way; the push and pull of their mingled desires drives them to claw at each other like ravenous animals. Loki can't be bothered to move them elsewhere. Magic is beyond him in this frenzied, aroused state of mind. He takes a page out of Thor's book and rips off her clothes barehanded. Right away, Loki can see why he does it.

The table is new to them, and makes for an less than comfortable afterglow, but there is a certain charm to having her here, in the open air with no walls to hide them. It means nothing that no one comes down here, because they freely could, and Loki decides they'll have to do this again.

**

_Day 41_

She's not in the bedroom or the basement. Loki finds her upstairs with those friends of hers, the chatty ones. They're in the middle of a deep discussion on the fineries of dating men in the service industry. According to the taller friend, they extend no further than getting free 'French fries' and grease stains on your clothes when you go to 'have a snog'. The shorter one finds that highly offensive, but isn't exactly disagreeing. Jane just goes with the flow, speaking little and siding with neither. That she is there at all piques his interest, as does the strange glow she has about her that he's never seen before, and doesn't dislike.

She changes positions to sit more comfortably, inadvertently focusing on the door. She finds the small square window he is looking through, is idle for a time, and then goes back to her friends.

Odd, she shouldn't be able to see him right now.

"I'd never had a sip of alcohol before that night," says the shorter one. By now, the conversation has moved on to a point too insipid to follow. Loki is seriously considering leaving her alone for another day. He hasn't visited since the 38th, needing a little time to himself without any source of exasperation, and certain that she needed it too. He could come back tomorrow, or not at all if she's so happy to forget him and spend her days in nonsensical jabber with a pair of fools.

"Well, we can't all be as crazy as you," says the shorter one to the taller one, in response to… something.

"Yes, and you never will be."

He tries not to smile at Jane, hiding her face in her shirt collar, mouthing along with them.

The women laugh at their own, flimsy jokes until even they get bored. Conversation tapers and if he's not wrong, Jane is smiling at him when her name is called.

"Jane? Hey, Jane?"

"Hmmm?" Jane casts eyes on the shorter one. "Sorry, I was just thinking."

The shorter one blinks. "What about?"

"Well, it's a little weird…" Jane says, stopping short for reasons Loki can't explain beyond gaining momentum, "but I was thinking about this girl I used to be friends with in kindergarten. You ever just have some random old memory come up out of nowhere before?"

The taller one, in the middle of studying the red paint over her fingernails, hums and nods.

"I hear you. I think of my ex-boyfriends all the time. Then, I laugh. I laugh a lot."

The shorter one smiles weakly at her friend, but that's the extent of acknowledgement the tall one gets.

"She and I were like sisters," Jane goes on wistfully. "We were the only friend either of us had for the longest time, so we kind of created our own little world together. Every day at recess, we'd run out to the playground and sit under the slide on the playground. We treated it like our own private fortress, even though other kids ran through all the time playing soccer or baseball. Then one time, her older sister taught us Pig Latin and we started speaking it everywhere to confuse people."

"That's really cute, Jane," says the shorter one.

"I think you mean, 'at-thay's eally-ray, ute-cay, Jac."

Jane extends her thumb to the taller one, rewarding her with a prize-winning grin.

"You got it, Hilda! In fact, let me show you guys how we worked it out. I swear, it's the cutest thing."

Jane Foster must have had some sort of mental breakdown in the time since Loki last saw her. It's the only explanation he can think of for why there is a happy, hair-twirling little girl in there possessing her body. All she has do now is literally take up some hair and twist it around her fingers, while dancing and singing in this 'pig Latin' or whatever it is (and it sounds ghastly).

The shorter one must agree, as she is entirely displeased to have Jane Foster holding her hand and gazing intently upon her. She looks to the taller one, hair hiding her face from view, but whatever plea for help she makes is ignored. Clearly, the tall one is the type to step right over the body of a fallen comrade and steal their sword.

"So it worked like this: every morning, when we got to school- are you listening Jacobine?"

The short one gives a nervous chuckle, which somehow translates to a 'yes' for Jane Foster.

"I think you said that wrong," the tall one says brazenly. "It should be 'Are-hay, ou-yay istening-lay'?"

"You're getting some kind of sick thrill out of this, aren't you?" asks the short one.

The tall one sticks out her tongue and goes to look over some spreadsheets and charts, leaving the short one at Jane Foster's mercy.

"When we first got to school, I would say 'Ood-gay orning-may, ancy-Nay.' Then she would say…"

She motions at the short one, awaiting a supplication she should know isn't going to come. Loki knows. The tall one knows too.

"Ix-nay, Jane. Jac doesn't have much aptitude for guessing games… do you ever wonder what ix-nay means?"

_"Nex!"_

"Er- no," Jane says to the irate short one, "it's actually nix. N- _I_ -X. You know, like 'nix it'."

"Oh yeah, I knew that…" says the short one. She shies away from Jane and the tall one, like she's just made a very stupid mistake, and the latter's expression makes it worse.

Jane moves along like it's nothing, and it is. Not compared to the way she wrangles cooperation out of her baffled friend, the tall one looking on like an amused puppetmaster. In the space of several minutes, she teaches the short one to respond to her 'pig Latin' with 'Good morning to you, Jane.' After four or five times of the short one repeating the mangled phrase, Jane is satisfied, and she expresses it with a slap of the short one's palm and a springy little turn on her heel as she excuses herself.

Loki follows her out the door, down the hall, and into her room. He only lets the illusion drop when she's locked the door tight and is turning around. She doesn't scream or jump at the sight of him.

"I knew it," she says, cheerfully bypassing him with an upbeat tune on her lips.

"May I ask what that was all about?"

Jane seats herself on the bed, her legs crossed over each other, her hands resting together atop her knee. She throws back her hair over her shoulder, revealing the smooth, creamy skin of her neck, clean of all the bruises and nips he's deposited over the last few weeks. He's suddenly very hungry.

"You may."

Weary eyes don't faze her, or wipe the little smirk off her face that he is more accustomed to seeing in the mirror. He's a terrible influence indeed.

"I'm doing an experiment," she says after a time.

"An experiment?"

"A _thought_  experiment, of sorts."

It leaves him with more questions, most of which he could answer well enough on his own, but let her have fun with this. He can admit that her way of theorizing, when they are both clear headed and fully dressed, can be worthwhile at times. If nothing else, he can give her that.

"Go on." He seats himself at her vanity, the chair growing and molding into a regal throne that is molded specifically to his form.

Something like longing flits across Jane's face as she eyes the ornate sculptures and velvet seat. A shame for her, Loki's not getting up.

"I've been doing some thinking," she starts, and he can tell already that she's not going to stop for a long time. "The books on time travel that I've been reading take some time to discuss time loops, mostly to joke about how impossible they are…"

"We should arrange a meeting with the writers," says Loki.

Jane snorts. "Yeah, we'll do lunch. Anyway, one of them mentioned the idea of subconscious time travel. It was only brought up in passing, but I cross referenced with a few online scientific journals. Unfortunately most of them were more about dreaming of the future than actual mental time travel, and as we have no control over other people's dreams-"

"Speak for yourself," Loki says casually.

It's really a half-truth (dream infiltration requires extensive training in meditation and a highly complex potion that takes eight days to brew), but of course, those are his specialty. Her subtle horror flickers out fast, but even that lightens the monotonous mood.

"W-well, we'll talk about that if this doesn't work." She clears her throat. "As I was saying, the articles I dug up weren't much help, but I was struck by the idea of a subconscious resistance to a conscious time loop. It's all theoretical for now, but what if the people around us really are retaining their memories of previous cycles, but can't consciously remember them? If that's the case, then it might be possible to draw out a memory of a previous loop. Do you understand where I'm going with this?"

"I do," Loki says as he adjusts the softness of the right side armrest to better match the left. "I understand perfectly that you have gone from mildly rational to utterly desperate, and in record time."

"Oh hahaha, smart guy," Jane says, moving her head from one side to with each laugh. "Have fun lounging around in your easy chair. I'm just going to be over here looking for a way out of this."

"By teaching people to speak like a pig."

"It's called  _pig Latin_ , and it's part of my experiment. So far, I haven't been around anyone but you long enough to establish any sort of routine like they have with each other. For the next few weeks, I'll repeat that story to Jacobine verbatim and teach her that phrase. I'll condition her to remember it and know how to answer, so one day, I'll walk right up to her like it's nothing and greet her 'Ood-gay orning-may, acobine-Jay,' just like I did today. If I'm right, she'll respond correctly without needing to think about it. She may not know why she knows, but she will."

"Pray tell how this will help us in breaking the repetition?" Loki drawls, but his indifference is sucked into the void of Jane's ill-advised enthusiasm and negated by it.

"The more we know about what we're dealing with, the better chance we have at finding a way out. If I'm right, this'll be a step in the right direction, and I'll thank you not to slack off and mess around with my stuff while I'm working."

From the pile of books strewn about on the floor, Loki has created a footstool; magic binds the covers together better than any adhesive. It could do with a little more height, but she doesn't have any more books. Jane Foster walks by, keeping close like she's going to try and kick them out from under him. He'd like to see her try and see where she'd end up: on her stomach, over his knee, receiving the handy punishment he's been dreaming of giving her ever since their first night together.

"So what do you plan to do in the meantime?" he asks. "I don't suppose you're just going to waste away practicing your hog language."

"I'll find things to do. Maybe I'll look into a few other ideas, or get some light reading in, or even go to the lounge and watch TV. I haven't done that in a while." She shrugs, and gives him a look that lets him know she's baiting him on purpose. "Why? Do  _you_ have any ideas?"

A slow and deadly smile creeps up Loki's face. "Well…"

**

_Day 42_

She moans into his shoulder as he nips her ear lobe. The hands that once held her wrists over her head now roam the gentle curves of her hips, while she is too lost in sensation to question how she is still unable to move her wrists apart. His tongue trails along her jaw and down her neck, where he leaves a few bites for good measure. He finds home over her nipple, which he thoroughly devours to the beat of her frantic panting.

Such wonderful sounds she makes for him.

**

_Day 45_

She's in an aggressive mood today, which is fine by him. She pushes him bodily into the mattress, riding him for all he is worth. His hands encircle her waist to aid her in staying on. At the last possible second, he bucks his hips, getting as far inside of her as he can as climax washes over them, and she throws her head back to scream.

**

_Day 48_

"…I swear, I will never look at raspberry jam the same way again."

**

_Day 50_

Spanking is out of the question, at least for now.

Her refusal strikes him as odd. He's bound her with magic more times than she can count, and never once has she stopped him. He's avoided pain, though. Today is the first day he's brought it up, and she is immediate and upfront in saying no. She needs not even stop reading to think about it. How long has she been thinking this over, to come to this conclusion before asking was even a wisp of an idea in the back of his mind.

No matter. Her hesitance is understandable someone, inexperienced as she is. He has no doubt she'll come around to the idea. She's not nearly as innocent as she looks.

He thrusts in deep, kicking the book she's abandoned off the bed, where some choice articles of clothing cushion it. The silk scarf over her eyes protects them from the huge beads of sweat trailing down from her hairline. At the moment of completion, she rears herself up. Loki removes her bindings but not the blindfold, preventing the potential injury that she's too far gone to consider. He lets her catch her breath before he removes it, ready to see those eyes of her glazed over in the final waves of pleasure, or else watching him reverently, begging him for more.

What he finds is fire. Her tiny hands push him down. He goes along with it, letting her believe her own strength has overwhelmed him. She mounts him, scarf in hand. The mischief she exudes is unmistakable, and it fills him with more pride than he could've imagined.

"My turn," she says.

**

_Day 53_

"What a grey room. It's so depressing."

"Well, if you recall, Dr. Ahlberg isn't exactly sunshine and rainbows. Now, did you do the spell?"

"As soon as we walked in. Are you certain you want to do this?"

"Why not? She already hates me. Now shut up and fuck me on her desk."

"This vengeful side of you is  _highly_  appealing."

"Desk. Now."

**

_Day 59_

For the second time, Loki stands behind a glass wall with Jane and her friends on the other side. Today, it's in the morning. People are scattered about, making pleasantries and partaking in a traditional Midgardian breakfast. (Jane tried to introduce him to select 'delicacies' some days prior. All but the coffee was intolerable to him, which was hilarious to Jane for reasons she had yet to divulge.) Jane herself is in the assembly line, choosing her gruel for the day. Jane's tray is sparsely filled compared to the piles everyone else is gulping down. It's horrific to watch. Even Volstagg had better taste than this. A carton of milk and a plate with three eggs and a piece of bacon are all Jane brings back. No wonder she's so tiny.

Her eyes slide to the window, unseeing but all-knowing. She winks, speaking clearly to him, 'watch and learn.'

He'll certainly watch.

He steps aside when a man in a lab coat makes his exit. A blast of sound hits him full force, but it's nothing to him like the lighthearted laughter of the two women who are the object of his and Jane's attention. Loki strengthens the spell that dulls the volume of those around them, their voices rise above the noise like a bird taking flight in a storm. The words themselves go in one ear and out the other, but Jane's voice rings out loud and clear.

"Good morning, Hilda!" She greets the tall one with a grin and wave that is uncommon for her, or so the taken aback look of the tall one tells him. Before she can answer, Jane rounds on the short one. Loki can feel her anticipation, and hear the drums rolling in her head.

"Ood-gay orning-may, acobine-Jay!"

The short one blinks her eyes twice, eyebrows scrunched together like she is trying to understand something. Jane subconsciously leans in just a tad, enough for no one but Loki to notice, as the short one answers:

"Gesundheit."

The short one takes a big bite of eggs and goes back to laughing with the tall one about nothing, while Jane's face, arms, and general disposition plummet into the ground.

A while later, Loki is back in his modified chair. Today, he goes with a leather based material for the cushions and uses a less overt design for the headboard. He likes it better this way: much more subtle and befitting of him , and perfect for watching Jane bury her face in her pillow in a pitiful attempt at suffocating herself.

"So, would we call that a failure?" he asks conversationally, pressing the pads of his fingers together and kicking his feet up. "Oh I'm so sorry, I meant to say 'ould-Way e-Way all-Cay-'"

_"Stop mocking me."_

_**_

_Day 61_

"Oh,  _now_  what are you doing?"

Loki steps around the empty food tray haphazardly upturned o her floor and left to rot. He gets a whiff of it, and banishes the tray to the farthest place he can think of. Someone halfway across the globe will be very confused when pieces of brown lettuce drop on them from the sky.

Jane, meanwhile, has the biggest book he's even seen in this realm propped up on her stomach, and she diligently takes in the information it offers without a care for what Loki has to say about it. He doesn't ask what she's reading. The picture on the cover, with its towering white pillars and uncial script engraved in them, too faded to make out but impossible to miss. She's thumbed her way to the very back of the book- he can't imagine she's read the whole thing in just one day. It takes her time to finish the page, though as the clock strikes the hour, Loki can't help but wonder if she's not doing this deliberately. Such is the reason for him to lean over her head, pushing the book back with one long finger. It brings to light a charcoal drawing of a masculine figure, his wrinkled face is mismatched with a youthful, muscular body wrapped in a toga that barely covers his torso. His white beard drags on the floor, and that he is seated makes its length no less impressive. An hourglass in his lap marks a halfway point between now and the inevitable future.

"Where were you yesterday?"

Her question is anything but off-putting. It's actually the first thing he expected her to ask.

"I… took a walk," he answers after a beat.

"Must've been a long one."

She must have a treasure trove of ideas of what he gets up to when he's not with her. Loki sits back and stares through her honey brown hair. He could probe her mind and learn them all without her ever knowing. Someone like her was bound to have entertaining scenarios in mind. Entertaining and highly implausible.

And yet, there is something unattractive in the idea of violating her mind, something he can't quite put his finger on, something that stays his hand.

"I see you've kept busy," he says, returning to those light little jabs that keep things normal between them.

"Someone has to."

That was well-timed, and had much better flow than previous comebacks. Her biting tone refreshes rather than annoys. He shows it in non-verbal ways: a rub on her upper back and a peck over her ear. All of it is either ignored outright or earns him a glare that lacks bark or bite.

"So, no questions for me?" he asks, and not because her silence bothers him in any way.

"What about?"

Loki eyes the book, which Jane then hides from view for whatever reason

"Oh, right," she says, as if it could have been anything else. "To be honest, that book didn't say much about Chronos."

"If nothing else, I suppose it's nice to have a change of pace. Your old plan was becoming quite tedious."

"I haven't given up on that yet," Jane says, pushing herself into a sitting position. "I think I didn't give it enough time last time. Another few weeks' worth of cycle, maybe. If it doesn't work after that…"

Her fingers rub together, and she appears to be picking at an otherwise well-trimmed nail, ruining the smooth, pale surface.

"I suppose you're covering your bases until then," Loki says.

"Well, what do you think I do when you're not around? Stare at the wall and wait for you to come back?"

"I wouldn't judge you if you did."

If looks could kill… well actually, Loki has survived far worse than a single woman's ire, so he would be fine.

"I wanted to ask," she says with enough forced civility to send a small village into destruction, "though I know I'm going to regret it: is it true that Chronos has three heads?"

Loki lowers his eyes. Laughter builds, and he lets it out only after the extended silence gets to her and she lifts her head.

" _Three heads?_ " It's almost a shame Odin and Frigga aren't here. With their experience, they were sure to have a riot. "Oh, you mortals are indeed creative."

Jane releases air out the side of her mouth, but has no words for him. Loki hopes she's not developing a tolerance for his sense of humor. He'll have to step up his efforts if that's the case.

"So what?" she asks. "He's an old guy with a beard like he is in this book?"

"You're getting warmer," Loki says while wiping a tear from his eye. "However, the one time I saw his face it, made several drastic shifts between old age, youth, and boyhood, all in the span of a minute. I highly doubt he has a true face, given his position."

"I guess that makes the most sense."

Jane rolls over, freeing her sheets from the mattress that holds them evenly. The ends touch the floor, swaying gently to blow aside gathering dust mites. Jane's pillow sags off the side, in a way Loki doubts is comfortable for her. For the first time today, she doesn't seem quite so downcast.

"Know anything about his wife? Ananke?"

"Dead."

"Of course."

Jane reads the cover of the book a couple dozen times. Loki counts the number of times her eyes move from side to side, and doesn't realize he's doing it until it occurs to him how utterly dull this day is becoming, and that so many other days have been exactly the same (there are 2,783 bricks making up this room and the basement lab combined).

Her arm crashes back to the bed and slides up with the rest of her. Teetering on the edge, her pillow loses its leverage and completes its journey to the floor, flopped over the blanket.

"So you're telling me that the Goddess of Fate died," she says, like it's a statement of a fact and not the gobsmacked exclamation it should have been.

"It's a sobering thought, I know," Loki says, toying with her a few, brief seconds,"but you have answered your own unasked question, Jane Foster. To be the ruler of fate is not the same as to be fate itself, as much as it may seem so. Before now, it had been centuries since I set foot on earth, yet people lie and cheat all the same, do they not?"

Jane is silent, perhaps going back to all the lies she has told in her life, the ones he knows to exist, no matter how small they are.

"Ananke's death, while surely a tragedy for her beloved husband, meant little in the grand scheme of things. Chronos may have double the workload, but you can rest assured that your future is still written in the stars. Of course, it's most likely taken on a more circular pattern as of late-"

"I don't believe in fate," Jane says definitively.

She gets up to the bathroom, but she stops at the threshold to lean against the doorframe, staring pensively into a space Loki can't enter. His throat feels dry all of a sudden. The weight of a coffee mug forms in his cupped hands, and he drinks deeply, eyes closed to savor the hazelnut taste. She's moved by the time he opens them. Humor appears where he never would have thought he'd see it, at least not today. That it's at his expense, he can excuse, especially if it enables him to get this question and answer game over with faster and move on to something more enjoyable for the both of them.

"I'm still waiting for you to tell me what is so amusing about my drinking this coffee."

She shakes her head. "I'm afraid knowing might sour your taste for it."

"You should let me be the judge of that." Loki's cup has lost steam by now, and with it goes the smoky flavor. The mug vanishes, while Jane gives up on relieving herself and goes back to the only seat available to her on the bed. It's an attractive image on its own, though it doesn't do for him what it typically does. He might as well wait for another, better day to try. "Is that all? Or is there more you'd like to know?"

In the time between his question and her answer, there is not a moment where she appears to be thinking about it. She has nothing to contemplate, because the question that needs asking planted its seeds in her mind long ago. In all this time, and for all the ways they've danced around the issue, now is the time for her to remove the proverbial gloves and attack head on.

"Why are you so apathetic to all this?"

Loki frowns, hard, and he bares his teeth, all for himself and not for her. Just because he's right doesn't mean he has to relish in it.

"Apathetic? How do you mean?"

"Don't turn this around."

She's brought a hand to her chin, stretches the index finger over her cheek. They're strong, well-shaped hands for someone her size, but he is not here to admire her. Her expressionless face is for once a mystery to him, and yet, for all that he can't decipher the look of her, he knows exactly what she is thinking.

"I would not describe my emotions in so general a term," he says, and he can tell she is already tired of listening. "Apathy is not the right word.  _Resignation_ , while a bit too strong and no more to my liking than the former, would be a bit more accurate."

"Okay,  _that_ I don't believe for a second," says Jane.

She no longer wants to sit and talk, it seems. When she gets up this time, she has nowhere to go. She stares him down like she really is godly one. Even when it stops being cute and Loki gives back three times what he's given, it bounces off her like bullets off his shield; like she has just become the predator and he is the dinner she's back against the wall. She catches his gaze and holds it, with strength she must have spent days building up just for this moment. Where they go from here depends on her, if she can keep her head up, or if she will burn out, and much as he wishes he could count on the latter, he knows better than that.

At his core, there is a buzzing that spreads from his heart and into his bloodstream. It is the kind he felt as a boy, at the end of a successful hunt, or when he mastered a new spell, or achieved a rare victory over Thor on the training grounds. It is a feeling best reserved for a worthy opponent, and Jane Foster, with a form he can wrap his hands all the way around, and a fierceness smoldering behind a pretty face and locked away in a façade of submission, she is worthy.

Loki stands. Close to twelve inches separates them at his full height. If one took only this into account, they would never understand the way he barely notices anymore that he must look down to see her. If they knew the full power he wields, they'd call her crazy for acting like she is his equal. The difference is that Jane Foster wouldn't care about them. He knows she wouldn't.

"Alright, fine," he says, like she's had no effect on him whatsoever. "I can spare a minute or two. Why don't you tell me how I really feel?"

"I can't do that."

A silent 'oh' is his answer. It chips away at her carefully constructed walls like the first attack by a great army.

"So once again, Jane Foster, you are setting yourself up for a fall. You dive in recklessly, never once considering the truth of your folly, am I right?"

"Well, you really like the sound of your own voice. Am  _I_  right?"

Now from the fortress comes the counterattack. It's a weak one, as far as she knows, and he is not down for long. In fact, that buzzing is turning to full-blown shivers, and not a single blow has been traded.

"If you really want to know what I think," she walks around him, assessing him with something that could be mistaken for objectivity. "I think… that I've never met anyone as complicated as you, Loki."

"Is that an insult?" he asks, lowering his voice to that level he knows undoes her, and indeed, she crumbles just a bit.

"Maybe," she says, recovering quickly, "but maybe not. You'll have to wait and see."

She backs up, closing the bathroom door with her body and then leaning herself against it. She might look a little more impressive in something other than the red shirt and loose fitting pants which, in terms of hideousness, gives her nightgown a run for its money.

"Either way, I know you haven't given up." She pokes him on the chest. "Call it whatever you want, apathy, resignation, boredom even- in the end, it's all just blowing smoke."

His mouth goes tight, an act she isn't able to bear witness to as he walks away from her. The weakness of it is not lost on him, quite the opposite. This is becoming far more than he wanted. She's digging too deep; uncovering truths like all of his defenses are mere child's play. Anxiety fills him, none of which he can fully blame on her. It was him, after all, who opened up to her. He had come back to her a second time, and then a third, and a fourth, when he should never have darkened her doorway in the first place. It would have been so easy to leave her alone in isolation that it's disgusting. He lost control- not once, but twice- and showed her the cold reality that existed beneath his even colder exterior. With her every word is a hidden need to warm him, and for the very first time, he thinks she may succeed. It fills him with a raw, powerful fear. (Or is that anticipation?)

"Well," he says, coming close just to remind himself once more that she really was no match for him in any way. "You have just enough good sense to know how little you know about what you are dealing with. I'm sorry to say, your feelings are entirely one-sided. For you, my dear Jane Foster, are not complicated in the least."

 _'What you are is intriguing,'_ says the voice of a traitorous mind.

**

_Day 65_

For the last few days, he hasn't gone to her.

He  _cannot_  go to her.

At night, he wants to ram his fist into any hard surface he can find, until the skin peels from his bones and his blood paints the wall. In the day, he keeps busy with whatever he can think to do. He takes a trip up north to see if Midgard's winter air is as biting as Asgard's. He is mostly disappointed. He spends one night at a meeting place for the dancers of Midgard, though the flashing lights and pounding 'music' are dreadful to behold, and their moves can hardly be called dancing. The writhing and grinding of their bodies bares a greater resemblance to some sort of deviant sex act, conducted by hundreds if not thousands of young men and women, their better judgment tainted by the seductive glaze of alcohol.

All the women leer at him from across the bar at one time or another. The bolder ones try to talk him up, and the foolish ones 'drunkenly' grab his rear end as they pass. There are two women in total who show no interest and only because their lust is reserved for each other. He could leave right now, and come back in his female form, see how they respond to that. If he'd done it, he could have spent an eventful night in their company, depending on how much they are open to. Yet even in his fantasies, there is no freedom. He pictures the two women, both blonde and fit with skin tanned brown, crowding around him on too small bed, trailing the length of his feminine body with sharp, eager tongues. Halfway through, their forms begin to morph. The yellow of their hair darkens into brown, their skin whitens, their bodies soften, and then there is only one of them, and it's Jane Foster's lips he seeks to claim with his own. It pulsates in his stomach, going lower, and leaving him to suffer a filthy sort of shame when he is through. Shame and anger. Anger at her.

_How dare she do this to him?_

On day 65, he starts the invasion. He could use the distraction and the exercise, and a night in the cell would be a change of scenery, if nothing else.

He leaves Selvig to his work and waits for Stark inside. It's the first time he's been around the Tesseract in weeks, and he feels it's the force of crippling power more greatly than before. He's nearly staggering to get away from it.

He leaves his armor on today, though he doubts it'll do any better at intimidating Tony Stark. That man is criminally reckless; he puts Jane to shame.

Here now, he arrives to his robotic servants dismantling his armor, a wholly unnecessary show of his technical prowess. Loki is aghast to think anyone could be that arrogant with their abilities.

"Let's do a headcount," Stark says at his bar drink in hand. Loki forces an unaffected smile and quietly recites along with him.

_'Thor…'_

"Your brother, the demigod,"

_'Captain Rogers…'_

"A supersoldier and living legend who kind of lives up to the legend,"

_'Banner…'_

"A man with breathtaking anger management issues,"

_'Mummy and daddy…'_

"A couple of master assassins, and you-"

"Have managed to  _piss off_  every single one of them?"

Stark pauses, those very words tripping over themselves on his lips. He fingers the bracelet, and Loki prays he'll stop wasting time and activate it now, allow them to move on for once.

"Yeah," Stark says awkwardly, "and that sounds really weird when you say it, by the way."

He goes on with the rest of his speech, a man of stature to the end. Loki waits for his cue to 'fail' at taking Stark's mind. He advances on the tough, but tiny man. He sees the fear mount, though he can no longer feel it, and he wishes that was the only thing eating away at him today

"How can they stop me," he says without a hint of infliction as his will melts like ice under the sun. "When they're so busy fight… oh, forget it."

He makes just one stop- to blast Selvig's device into a million pieces and to crack Selvig himself over the head. Then, it's back to the lab.

The first thing he sees is Jane hunched over a book of papers, which she proceeds to hurl at the wall with all the strength she can muster. Something about that picture, and the fire inside dulled to a complacent spark, brings a chuckle to his lips. She tenses at the sound.

"That's not polite," Loki says. "Someone is going to have to clean it up."

"No one comes in here but me," she replies. She doesn't turn to face him yet, but she will. "Even if they did, what do I care?"

He clicks his tongue, in place of another, more boisterous laugh that, at this point, would feel a bit redundant.

"Now, now, Jane Foster, you don't wear apathy well."

Those are the magic words, it seems. She whirls around, fully facing him as the flames flare to life.

"And  _you_  don't wear those antlers well, but it's never stopped you."

Oh, how he hates that.

How he hates the way he craves it.

The day wears on fast. She taunts him, he taunts back. She seduces him, he takes the bait. In the end, she's a mess of uncontrollable need, screaming his name like it's a prayer. The night falls through a hazy filter. They are either in Jane's room or on a pile of pillows in the far corner of the lab. Later on, Loki will forget which was then and which was the day after. On one of those days, Jane ends it abruptly. A new idea has struck that will need to be tested.

She relays her latest theory to him, and he sits up and he listens. The next day, he comes back to hear more.

He thinks it's an awful idea.


	11. Days 70- 71

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually got this chapter out in a semi-timely fashion! :D *parties*
> 
> Not much to say about this one. We're getting more into the real meat of the story now that we're into the post-prologue days. I just want to take this opportunity to announce a couple of things. First of all, I forgot to mention in the last chapter that there is a bonus scene for this story in my drabble collection, The Science of Lies. It's chapter four of that collection, titled 'Day 31'. Nothing extra special happens, but you can consider it fully canon for Lokiday.
> 
> Also, another companion piece is on the way (and if you haven't read the first one, All The Pretty Little Horses, I recommend that you do). This one is an interquel rather than a prequel like ATPLH. It focuses on the Avengers and what they are doing on the days where Loki doesn't attack. It is tentatively titled 'A Day in the Life,' unless I can think of something better. If you have any ideas, feel free to run them by me. I will give you full credit should I use it.
> 
> Alright, on with the show!

_Day 70: Jane Foster_

She’s starting to forget what a headache feels like. 

There was a time when she would get one every week, on the clock.  That was back when her funding came and went like the tide.  They were never quite migraine level; that was a pain Jane had been spared from, despite the two generations of migraine sufferers she was born to.  Nevertheless, one could sit on the edge of Jane’s bed while she wasted a perfectly good work day with a bottle of Tylenol and an ice pack, telling her she could have it worse, and see how far that got them.

She doesn’t have one today, the seventieth May 4th if her calculations are correct (and she’s starting to doubt them), but she feels like she should.  What would be pain is instead a gentle pressing at the back of her skull.  Her eyes feel heavy, but she has no need for sleep.  The only pounding is that of the red metal ball Loki pulled out of nowhere once he got tired of playing with the glass items.  It flies to the ceiling and falls back to earth, slapping the flesh of Loki’s palm again and again.  Jane follows it like the ticking of the clock.  This is not a new thing for him, to ignore her in favor of a rousing game of one man catch, but today, it grinds her gears extra hard.

She tries to block it out, as she’s laid out on a sturdy lab table with a bunched up lab under her head.  She counts the number of tiles in the ceiling, adds up the digits of the resulting number.  Subtracts them, divides them, multiplies them…

Her latest theory sank like a lead balloon before it even got off the ground.  Once she’d withheld enough sex to make Loki cooperate, things progressed fairly quickly, which was a good thing, according to Loki.  She had no time to get attached to this particular idea like she had the pig Latin one (and that one was so stupid in retrospect that Jane would probably never recover). 

She hates him when he’s right.

She hates him in general, as she frequently reminds herself, but _especially_ when he’s right.

The truth is, she could’ve happily burned all the notes she took over the last few cycles if they still existed to be burnt.  It would’ve been just lovely to test the strength of the Observatory’s fire alarm system and spend another night freezing to death in a jail cell.  If nothing else, Loki would have fun.

She wonders, after a while, if she should find something small and easy to throw and take a page out of Loki’s book.  Of course, everything in here is in some way fragile, and she lacks his precision.  She’s more likely to get ends up in the infirmary with lacerations all over her face than anything else.  Still, it’d at least be something to do.  Jane is fast running out of ideas for that.

She determines the square root of the number of ceiling tiles to the closest possible degree.  Meanwhile, Loki has given up his game and is now leafing through a few old papers that have been left to rot.  He hums as he reads, though Jane knows very well that it isn’t because he’s intrigued.  When he does it a third time, Jane shoots into the air.

“I can’t take it anymore!”

The stabbing echo of her delirium means little to him.  It radiates on the walls and beyond.  Somewhere two floors up are a team of researchers looking confusedly around their lab, wondering where that voice had come from.

“Impressive,” says the (almost) always impassive Loki, his eyes just reaching her.  “I was sure you’d have lost your mind by day fifty.”

Jane looks around for something to smash, but there is nothing is big or heavy enough for her.  Her rage is boiling over, having simmered for far too long in its own juices.  Loki’s presence has been a blessing and a curse, more the latter on days like this.  Even on days when it isn’t, there is a distinct sense of what she could get done if she didn’t have him around to distract her.

The answer is nothing.  Nothing at all.

That knowledge has her shutting up and going back to licking his neck on the good days, which then go on to be very good days, followed by holy-crap-that-was- _amazing_ days.  Perhaps the biggest conflict of Jane’s existence was the fight over how much she wished it wasn’t so and how much she wished it would never end. 

So far, today has been a bad day, and Jane doesn’t see that changing any time soon.  Tomorrow is bound to be a bad day too, but if she keeps her cool, maybe the day after can be semi-good.   Before she thinks too far ahead, she has to deal with the here and now.  Loki has abandoned the papers to the trash bin (even psycho killers can be tidy?).  His toy has been stored away in one of the non-existent pockets of his coat.  Jane tries not to stare, but there are many reasons why she must.  Aside from the obvious, she’s still trying to make sense of all that armor of his and how he can possibly move in it.

She gives him her strongest look of warning. It’s the kind that had stuffy old school board members quaking in their shoes and Darcy shutting off her ipod and actually getting work done.  It maybe makes Loki blink, or that could just be the dust in the air.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she says to him.  “I’m serious, no games today.”

Loki quirks up an eyebrow.  “And how am I playing games?”

She points at him.  “Just like that.”

She stalks to the mini-fridge, sparsely stocked with water and a single can of iced coffee.  Jane chugs down the latter.  Her teeth chatter incessantly, but the cold washes over her insides, cleansing her of the heat he inspires.

While she is shaking herself out, Loki is propped up over the counter, hand on his hip like a spoiled teenage girl who wants attention.

“Are you going to stand there slurping down that abominable substance all day, or are you going to explain yourself?”

Her needful gulps taper off into slow sipping, as the remainding drink slips down her throat.  Jane crushes the empty can.  Tiny droplets are squeezed out, much to Loki’s consternation.  Jane scoffs at him. 

“You’ll drink your weight in hot coffee, but a single iced coffee and you’re done.”

“There is a difference,” Loki says.  “Where one soothes, the other inflames.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means ‘never drink that in my presence again.’  Am I clear enough for you now?”

Jane sighs, tossing the crushed can at the trash bin.  It bounces off the edge and spins, passed the toe of Loki’s shoe and into the corner, where it will gather dust until the next cycle has it refilled and back in the fridge. 

When he next opens his mouth, Jane’s hand clamps over it.

“No more,” she says.  “I will not fight with you today.  I literally do not have the energy to so much as raise my voice, so just don’t bother, Loki.”

As the shock of her actions and utter gall wears off, Loki’s eyes become slits.  Something ice cold stabs Jane in the chest, but when she moves her hand away, she sees not a snarl of rage, but a bright, happy grin.  Of course, Loki’s version of happy usually involves things dying, so it’s less than an improvement.

“I see,” he says, in a voice that isn’t quite _that voice_ but has Jane’s heart skipping a beat all the same.  “You’ve been hiding a great deal of frustration all along.”

“Who’s hiding?”

She double and triple checks the fridge one more time to see if there is something alcoholic in there that she’s missed.  Who cares if it would mean being drunk in front of him again? At least she’d feel better.  Alas, there is nothing.  Jane kicks it closed with excessive force.

“I just don’t want to be here anymore,” she says, sitting on top of it.

Loki purses his lips.  “Neither do I.  I thought that was the whole point of this.”

“I mean I don’t want to be _here_.  In this facility.  Dammit, it’s been over a month since I’ve had a change of scenery.  You may not get it, since you can come and go as you please, but I’m going stir crazy!”

She scratches her face to get the hair out of it.  That one section keeps finding its way over her eyeball, all untamed and knotted.  That’s what she gets for not brushing it this morning.  It just hadn’t been worth it to try, the way she’s feeling.  The singular act of lifting her arm feels like a chore.  Brushing her teeth was also a no-go, which might explain the uncharacteristic way Loki has been staying _out_ of her personal space.

“If you wanted a small vacation,” he says, “you should have just asked.”

 _‘That would be great if I thought I could trust you,’_ Jane thinks, and comes very close to saying out loud.  If she wasn’t completely certain it would trigger an argument, she would.

“Fine, then.  Let’s go.”  She slides off the fridge. 

He seems far too happy when she takes his hand, and Jane thinks she should have gone for the wrist or the shoulder instead.  Does she even need to be touching him for this to work?

Maybe she should’ve asked first.

No, never mind.  He’d just lie.

“Is there anywhere in particular you’d like to go?” he asks.

“Someplace that isn’t this room, for starters.”

She endures one more second of the pale, lifeless white walls and the mountains of junk piled up.  She is next aware of a powerful suction, pulling her into a space so closed, it’s a wonder she can take a breath to scream.  They fall into infinite space.  If Jane had an Aesir’s strength, she’d have taken Loki’s arm off before it was over.  When it does end, it’s that ironclad grip that keeps her from falling on her face as her legs give out.

Loki offers her no assistance, not that she would’ve accepted it.  When she’s caught her breath and feels safe to open her eyes, a bright blue sky is what greets her.  Jane has to blink several times so her eyes can adjust.  A great, wide ocean stretches out before her.  The water is quiet in this peaceful weather, and goes on for miles around.  The land down below recedes into a tiny beach, one Jane is loathed to walk on.  She’d hate to disturb the smooth perfection of the golden sands, but standing still is no better an option.  She wants to take in the salty sea air.  It’s so refreshing after so many ‘weeks’ in that stuffy lab and that dinky dorm room. 

She turns to Loki.  Two words need to be spoken, much as she wishes they did not.  A mass of black and grey building that she’d know anywhere provides a backdrop for his innocuous visage.  Just like that, her wish has been granted in the worst possible way.

“What?” he asks as her face turns red.  He looks over his shoulder, like he really has no idea what is bothering her.  He sizes up the observatory and gasps.  “Oh, I see.  My deepest apologies, Jane, but when you requested a location that wasn’t that room, I assumed you really did mean anywhere.  You should learn to be more specific.”

He wraps an arm around her like an old friend, his magic trapping them in place.

“You are not funny,” she growls as they’re sucked in again.

“I beg to differ,” he says.

Or at least, she thinks he does.

**

A bell chimes, and a tray of hot, deep fried breakfasts are pushed out the chef’s window.  A waitress takes it over her head in that balanced way all waitresses are somehow capable of.  As a child, Jane would watch them and wonder if there was some special boot camp for new waiters where they learned all the necessary skills for holding ten plates at a time without dropping anything.  It makes her glad that she turned to fast food restaurants for summer jobs.  Her sense of balance is bad enough, no need to embarrass herself over it.

Their waiter- a gangly kid with an acne-ridden face whom she’s never seen before- places a grilled chicken salad in front of Jane and a cup of hot coffee before Loki. 

“Let me know if you need anything else, Miss,” he says to Jane.

“We certainly will, Corey,” Loki answers for her.  His toothy grin has a thick sheen of sweat running along the poor boy’s pasty white face.  It can’t be a coincidence that he’s walking backwards away from them.  One second of broken eye contact could be the difference between life and death by bored mischief god. 

It’s Loki who looks away first, as he stirs some sugar into his coffee like nothing has happened.  The waiter makes a break for the kitchen, tripping as he goes.  There may be tears in his eyes.  Looks like they’re switching waiters again.

“Why do you do that?” Jane mutters through a forkful of lettuce.  Part of her hopes he’ll ignore her, but Loki doesn’t know the meaning of a rhetorical question.

“You have your methods of coping, Jane Foster, and I have mine.” 

He pours a few drops of milk into the murky liquid, lightening it to a golden brown.

“Well, at least this way, you can’t give anyone permanent mental trauma,” she mutters.

“I do try.”

Jane stabs the largest piece of chicken she can find with the prongs of her fork and shoves it into her mouth.  To hell with being lady-like.  If she doesn’t keep her mouth busy, she’ll yell at him.

It’s bad enough being back in Puente Antiguo with Loki in tow, having to wonder how he even remembers this place while they walk down half-rebuilt streets that he destroyed himself.  Having to deal with the greetings of old acquaintances who want to know everything about where she’s been and what she’s been doing and what happened to those weird Men in Black who took her away.

Then they notice Loki.

It’s especially bad when it’s a woman who’s stopped her, but there are a few men as well.  They wander off, probably questioning their sexualities if they weren’t already, while the women stick around to stare longingly at him like he’s Prince Charming come alive.  They have no idea that he’s really the dragon, and he’ll eat them up without a second thought if given the chance.

He loves the attention, he makes that painfully clear.  Jane eventually has to stop insisting that they are not a couple because that just gives women space to try slipping their numbers into his palm. 

Izzy’s is literally the only place around where no one cares about them.  Today’s patrons are ninety percent sweaty construction workers chomping down burgers and ketchup slathered fries.  The rest are elderly folk, regulars for the noontime lunch rush.  They greet Jane kindly and ask no questions about Loki.  Izzy is not working today thanks to a bout of stomach flu, and that’s really a shame.  Jane would’ve liked to say hello.

With her salad mostly finished, barring some messy bits of lettuce, Jane stares out the window in the direction of her lab.  She can’t really see it from here, though.  She kind of doesn’t want to.  Seeing it again so suddenly sent her into a talespin of nostalgia, the likes of which shouldn’t be so strong after only a week.  It might make more sense after say… two and a half months. 

Yeah, that’s better.

It’s weird thinking about all this in real time.  Maybe that’s why she won’t let herself.

“Why did you bring us here?” she whispers to him.

It really grinds at her, the way he smiles.  It’s like he saw this as a game from the beginning: who can go the longest without talking?  And she just cracked.

“Isn’t this your home?” he asks.  “I thought you might have missed it.”

“Well, thank you for considering me,” Jane mumbles.

She hushes up as a perky young woman with bright (most likely died) red hair and ears covered in piercings bounces over.  She introduces herself as Emily, their new waitress, and her bubbly disposition extends about as far as grinning stupidly at Loki and just barely acknowledging Jane’s existence.

“If you need anything at all, just give me a shout,” she says, and she winks at Loki and sashays off to the next table, leaving Jane with the distinct impression that when she says ‘anything at all,’ she really does mean _anything_.

“Don’t encourage them,” she says under her breath.

“I don’t.”  Loki grins.  “They come to me.  I don’t make them.”

“You could ignore them.”

“Why does it bother you so much?” he asks, lowering his eyes in a way she recalls Dr. Averman doing.

“Because we shouldn’t be drawing attention to ourselves, _that’s why_.”

He gives an indifferent shrug.

“If that’s the case, you should have found someone else to enter this repetition with.  Like that friend of yours, the mouthy one.”

“Believe me, if I could trade you for Darcy, I would.”

He laughs.  “But Jane, think of all that you would lose if you sacrificed me.  I highly doubt you’d enjoy so much _her_ tongue on your-“

“HEY, Emily!  Another ginger ale please!” Jane waves at the passing waitress.  A few people give her weird stares and she appears to have jolted one old man awake.  He goes back to his barely touched waffle while Jane sinks to the floor.  Ten seconds later, Emily is back with a fresh drink for Jane and another, gratuitous wink for Loki.  He answers with an approachable smile Jane didn’t think he was capable of.  They didn’t call him the God of Lies for nothing.

“If it bothers you so much, we are free to return whenever you wish,” he says.

Emily brings them their main orders- a cheeseburger for Jane (to hell with calories) and another coffee for Loki.  Why he refuses to eat anything, Jane wishes she could care less about.  Most likely, he’s sampled Earth food during a previous cycle and decided it was inferior to his ‘high class prince’ sensibilities.  She could just see him, choking on a piece of hot dog like it was poison, jettisoning the remains into the stratosphere before going to wash his mouth out until his throat is raw. 

Jane hides her smile behind the meaty burger and takes a bite.  Loki counts out drops of milk for his coffee while Emily makes her rounds- though Jane’s pretty sure her only other table was just vacated.  It’s getting to the point of redundancy, her antics.  Jane ponders if it would be out of line to request for Corey to come back.

“So, Jane,” Loki says.  “Tell me about your first sexual experience.”

Jane spits out her drink.  Most of it goes on the table, and Jane swiftly has a bundle of napkins over it before Emily can come over with the mop. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jane rubs the wet table hard enough to make the color fade.

Meanwhile, Loki has the nerve to look shocked by her question. 

“I simply wished to re-open the channels of conversation.  You didn’t seem to like the direction we were going in before, so I choose something relevant to both our interests.”

If he thinks she’s buying that, or if, by bringing this up, he could persuade her into some kind of raunchy PDA for the hell of it, he’s got another thing coming.

“Fine, but you don’t just ask people questions like that,” Jane says, lowering her voice substantially as she comes to realize that she’s shouting.  “ _Especially not in public.”_

Loki leans in.  “This discussion is not one way, Jane.”

Jane snorts.  “Oh, so you’re going to tell me about the first time you had sex?”

“If you’d like me to start.”

“How old are you again?  Like you’d even remember.”

“A guest bedroom in the middle of a banquet celebrating the king of Vanaheim’s thousandth year on the throne.  She was a governess for his youngest children, and an impeccable dancer.  I was five hundred and fifteen years old at the time- early to bloom, as they say- and she was a bit older than that.  We spent the night together and parted ways the next day.  It’s all very storybook romantic, and I think that’s why I never sought her out again.  No challenge to it at all.” He smirks.  “And I’m one thousand and forty eight, thank you.”

His eyes are dancing.  It’s oh-so nice of him not to point at her and laugh maniacally like he probably wants to.  Jane starts to devour her remaining burger.  Her stomach is raging and she wants something to focus on that isn’t him.  She reaches for it and finds nothing but air.  Somehow, she’s consumed the whole thing in the time he’s been talking.  That would explain the rumbling of her stomach.

Jane starts for the fries, coating one side with a reasonable amount of ketchup, taking time to make sure she has it just right.  Not too much and not too little.  He’s watching her all the while, waiting for her.  Jane eats the whole thing in one bite, followed by four more.  She breaks on the sixth.

“Fine!” she drops the fry into the ketchup, where it sinks halfway down.  “It was right before I graduated high school.  His name was Todd Faulkner.  We were… not really friends- acquaintances, I guess.  We had mutual friends.  I don’t know how it is on Asgard, but around here, there’s a stigma against being a virgin after a certain point, especially for guys.  All of our friends had already done it, so to speak.  We were the only ones left and neither of us wanted to start college without some kind of experience, so we did each other a favor.  That’s it.  Happy now?”

“Quite,” he says, mug in hand.  “That’s a fascinating story, Jane.  Shame on you for keeping it from me.”

Jane takes a new fry and crams it into her mouth.  She’s never known herself to be an emotional eater, but…

“Forgive me for not having a long life of adventure and intrigue like you have,” she says. _‘At least I didn’t grow up to be a serial killer.’_

“It must have been mind-blowing for you, and for this Todd fellow,” he goes on.  “Inexperience on top of inexperience.  No wonder your desires with me are so unbridled.”

“If you’re trying to imply that I’d never had a good time in bed before you came along, save it,” she says, feeling in control for the first time since he started this game.  “Because there was another guy after Todd, and I _did_ have my mind blown by him.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

She nods her head in a ‘so there’ kind of way.  It succeeds in driving the mirth from his face, but the subject, she fears, is still on the table.  Next he’ll want to ask the guy’s name, and she’ll have to admit that she doesn’t remember, because it was a one night stand back in Grad school, and that he left before she woke up without so much as a note, and that she later found out he was a well-known womanizer, making her just one more in a long string of girls he’d taken to bed.  Then he’d want to know about any serious relationships she may have had, and she’d have to explain the five sexless years she spent with Donald Blake, because she’d decided that she didn’t want any more sex with guys she barely knew and wanted to wait a while to really get to know Don first.  And that by the time she was ready, he’d already dedicated himself to his work, and so every time she tried to initiate something, that goddamn beeper of his would go off and he’d have to leave for another twelve hours to cover someone else’s shift or oversee an emergency surgery, promising that he’d be back in an hour and coming back the next morning, too exhausted to even take his shoes off before collapsing into bed. 

She’d have to tell him all about the day she finally had enough and went over to Don’s house to break up with him, leaving behind her copy of his house key and taking with her a crippling sense of what could have been.

“I don’t think you realize how lucky you are, Jane Foster.”

Jane is so caught up in her fantasy interrogation of herself that she completely misses that, and just about answers that it’s none of his damn business what the guy’s name was.

“I’m lucky?” she asks instead, clueless to where he is going with this and wanting to just go back to her French fries.

“That you’ve forsaken Thor,” he explains, and it’s clear he’s enjoying this far, far more than he should be.  “I’ve walked in on him and a paramour enough times to know he has no skill at seduction.  You would’ve been wholly unsatisfied with him.  The man is as subtle as blunt force trauma.”

And now, something bubbled up inside Jane’s stomach, perhaps the first positive emotion she’d felt since he started this whole conversation.  He’s going to talk about subtlety when just three cycles ago he was changing her room into an Asgardian style palace chamber and summoning a double of himself to hold her down while another ate her out?

“You know, you don’t have to shit talk Thor to me.  I’m already sleeping with you.”

“I only speak the truth,” he says.

Jane enjoys the last of her fries until Emily returns one last time with the check.  Flirty grin in play, she starts to hand the paper to Loki, only for Jane to circumvent her and start rummaging through her wallet for some bills.

“Oh,” says Emily.  “I’m sorry.  I thought your boyfriend would be paying.”

She speaks ‘boyfriend’ like it’s the most loathsome word in the English language.  In context, she’s not totally wrong.

“Actually, he’s not my boyfriend,” Jane answers politely.  “He’s my gay brother-in-law.”

It’s hard to tell whose face falls harder, but if Jane had to guess, she’d say Emily.  The waitress drains so much of color that Jane fears for a moment that she’s killed the girl.  Then she takes back the check with a small stack of bills rolled around it and leaves without another word.  From there, her only acknowledgment of them is the looking of intense disappointment she shoots at Loki before they leave.  It doesn’t hold a candle to the way Loki is eyeing Jane.

“What?” She briskly asks.  “You have your way of coping, and I have mine.”

**

They do better in the convenience store, where the only person around is Courtney, the checkout girl.  Jane remembers her.  Courtney is never without her massive, ear covering headphones or a magazine- usually something music related, deaf to the world around her.  Jane is pretty sure they’ve never once made eye contact, even though she went to the store almost every day to get supplies. 

With no one around to fawn over him, Loki has no way of entertaining himself beyond picking up random items from the shelves and putting them back in the wrong spots when they don’t meet his standards, and they never do.

“What kind of drink is this _instant_ coffee?”  He sniffs at a bag of the stuff when he thinks her back is turned.

“It’s just regular coffee,” she says, looking over the sports drinks.  “You make it with water.  It’s really easy.”

“It sounds disgusting,” he says, making a face.

Jane snatches it from his hands and places it neatly back in its proper place.  She’s not sure which of that annoys Loki more.

“You can’t just turn your nose up to every type of food you’re offered,” she snaps at him.  “You’re not five.”

“Find something that doesn’t look or smell like a peasant’s slop, and we’ll talk,” he counters.

Groaning in frustration, Jane stomps into the next aisle, lined with colorful packages of candy.  In general she’s never been much for sugary stuff, but she has a weakness for Twizzlers that dates back to early childhood and never went away.  Now is as good a time as any.  Jane grabs the biggest bag she can find, confident that she won’t get through a third of it before the cycle ends. 

“What is this?”

Jane looks up at whatever random thing he’s found this time.  A bright orange bag covered in images of brown candies is held by a corner between Loki’s thumb and index finger.

“Those are Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups,” she tells him.  “They’re peanut butter wrapped in chocolate.”

When she takes the bag from him this time, it’s only so she can rip it open and pour two or three of the miniature candies into her palm.  There’s a tiny thrill to what she’s doing.  She has no intention of buying this bag, and this is technically stealing.  Never had she had the guts to try sneaking a candy bar out in her pocket.  The other kids did (or _said_ they did).  Jane was the scaredy-cat of the bunch.

Setting the bag aside, Jane holds the candies under his nose.

“Try it,” she commands.  “At least try _something_.”

This does little to impress him, but as long as he throws up his hands and takes the candies, she’s satisfied.  It’s still a few seconds before he eats them, and he seems rather tense in the interim.  It’s obvious that he’s bracing himself.

 _‘Baby,’_ Jane thinks.

He pops them all in his mouth at once.  A sudden change comes over him as he registers the sweet, chocolaty taste, followed by the peanut butter.  His jaw slackens, but his mouth stays closed.  There is something distinct in his stare, like he’s having some kind of divine revelation.  Jane can’t be sure.  The moment ends as quickly as it begins.

“It’s… not repulsive,” he says long after he’s swallowed.  “I suppose it’s acceptable.”

Jane takes her purchases to the counter.  Little bags of pretzels and another salad for later are rung up one after the other while Courtney flips to the next page in her magazine and never once looks up.  The bag of Reese’s Jane left behind has mysteriously appeared on the conveyer belt, but Loki has nothing to say about it.

**

“So, tell me about your friends.”

It’s a comment that comes out of nowhere, in the middle of a lengthy silence that only the caw of a passing vulture could break.  That she’s speaking now means nothing except that she’s tired of listening to it.  It has nothing to do with her wanting to talk to him, or finding the tone of his voice when he’s not angry soothing, the latter of which she grudgingly admits is true, but still has nothing to do with this. 

He pulls his hand out of the Reese’s bag.  He’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s consumed half of it.  Just watch, though.  Later on, he’ll deny having had it in the first place.

“I have no friends,” he says.

“Oh, no?”  She rips the wrapping off a cold ham and cheese sandwich.  “What about those- alien friends of yours?  Whatever those guys are.”

Loki almost chokes.

“The Chitauri,” he says, and Jane rolls the foreign name around in her head, committing it to memory.  “They are hardly what one would consider friends.  They are barely sentient, let alone intelligent.  A hivemind, more or less.  If the mothership is destroyed, as it has been at least fifteen times now, then the fleet is disabled.  It’s pathetic how easy it is to kill them, so long as one has the technology to travel into deep space and the dumb luck to survive the trip.”

He must’ve known that would leave her with more questions than answers.  After knowing her all this time, he has to have seen that coming.  It’s kind of true.  Sitting out on a sand bank a mile out of town- with a spell to keep them warm as the sun drops below the sand- there are some elephants in the room Jane refuses to drag along any further.

“So you’ve met Tony Stark,” she says.  It might be a good idea to keep things light right off the bat.  “That’s cool.  I’ve been fascinated with his work for years.  What’s he like?”

“He’s a presumptuous, narcissistic twit with a mouth the size of an ocean and only slightly more tact than Thor on a good day.”

Jane weighs his answer. 

“How did I know you’d say something like that?”

The wrapper crinkles as she tosses it into the bag reserved for garbage.  After lunch at Izzy’s and the sandwich she just finished, her stomach is full to bursting.  Those Twizzlers don’t look nearly as appetizing now as when she bought it.  What a shame that is.

“How about the rest of them?  They must be fun.”

“They are entirely unremarkable beyond the attributes that make them so-called ‘heroes.’”

“I don’t know,” Jane prods him further.  “Having the ability to become a green giant would make a good conversation starter.”

“And the man behind it is nothing more than a slave to his other half.  He is a monster in human form.  You’d do well to remember that, should you ever encounter him.”

He spreads himself out in the sand, his long legs stretching to their full length.  Throwing his head back, he watches a sky that is slowly filling with stars.  Jane follows his gaze.  She can name four or five constellations right away, and finds an extra two not long after.  She watches them like a favorite old film, dusted off after years in the back of the closet.  She never knew she could miss a lonely desert night so much, but it was a truth she hadn’t acknowledged when she should have, that Puente Antiguo had become as much of a home to her as the one she’d shared with her mother all those years ago.  Even the wind feels like a warm hug from an old friend.  She could reach out and try to embrace it.  She’d been unsure when Loki dropped them here this morning.  Now, she’d like to thank him for it.

“Somehow, you don’t seem like the best person to take advice from.”

“You should trust me on this, if nothing else,” Loki says, his mouth noticeably full.  “I’ve been on the receiving end of his savagery enough times to know.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” Jane murmurs, and if hears it (he probably does) he doesn’t make it known.  “Anything else of note?”

“Nothing you wouldn’t already know.”

“I know Thor and I know _of_ Tony Stark and Captain America.”  Jane rests her head in the sand, no longer wanting to sit up.  She can watch her stars better this way anyway.  “How about those other two?  The woman and the man with the bow and arrows, I never found out who they were.”

“They’re SHIELD agents,” Loki says.

“That figures.”

“The woman, if you must know, is Natasha Romanov.  She’s wily, that one.  The man is Clint Barton.  You’ll often find them in close quarters.  It’s easier to maintain a secret romance that way.”

“They’re a couple?”

“They even have a child together,” Loki says gleefully, like it’s the funniest thing in the world to him.  “A little girl named Chloe.  Oh, how they love that child; more than life itself.  It’s a shame they had to give her up.  Professional spies and trained assassins do not proper parents make.”

Jane says nothing, unable to feel more than a twinge of sympathy for the child of this unfortunate couple she knows only through him.  Nevertheless, it’s a depressing story, almost like something out of a movie.  That girl could grow up and start wondering where she truly came from, only to find that her birth parents are partly responsible for saving the world.  That would be the kind of film Darcy would drag her to for a weekend double feature.  It puts things into perspective for Jane, who even at her busiest, never ruled out the possibility of being a mother someday.

“Chloe’s a nice name,” she says, more to herself.  It’s a simple observation that doesn’t really need to be voiced.  “I always thought if I had a daughter, I’d name her Christina.  No real reason why, I just like it.”

“Hmm…”  
  
Empty soda cups float past her vision into the trash bag, which then ties itself in a neat bow before landing flat on its bottom end, held in place by the sand that gathers around it.

_‘Show-off.’_

“Now, I think that’s enough about me,” Loki says.  “Tell me about your companions, Jane Foster.  Like that friend of yours who taught you pig Latin.”

Jane shrugs.  “There’s not much to say about her.  Why are you even interested?”

He makes a face, the kind that always seems to provoke a near violent response in her.  Too bad for him, she’s not in the mood.

“I’ve answered all your questions, haven’t I?”  He presses a hand to his chest, as if wounded.  “It’s only fair that you return the favor.”

_‘Technically, I don’t owe you anything, Mr. ‘Anyway, how’s your sex life?’’_

Jane sits up, careful not to let sand slip below her beltline.  That would be a bitch to get out.

“We were best friends from Kindergarten on-“

“Kindergarten?”

“School,” Jane says, motioning with her hands as if that will help her find the right words to explain.  “It’s what we call school for five year olds.  After you finish Kindergarten, you move on to first grade, and then second grade, and so on until you graduate after twelfth grade, get it?”

“Certainly,” he says without a hint of actual interest.

“Nancy and I were best friends up until we were about eight, when we started to drift apart.  Then we went to separate junior high schools, and that was it.”

“That’s all you have to say about her?” 

Jane groans in annoyance.  “Jesus, what do you even care?  Uh… I remember she really loved music, any kind of music.  She had a tape full of kiddy songs that she played half the time and a tape full of singer-songwriters her mom loved that she played the rest of the time.  Oh, and she had heterochromia in her eyes.  One was brown and the other was light green.”

“That’s very interesting,” Loki says distractedly. 

It’s enough to pull Jane out of the zone he’s put her in, and she has no more to say to him.  She instead plays with all the memories he has unintentionally dug up, like the time when they were seven, and Nancy convinced a group of first graders that her ‘funny eyes’ were because she was an alien princess from Neptune (or was it Saturn), and then offered to bring them back to her home planet with her in exchange for all of their Halloween candy.  Or the summer before third grade, spent at Nancy’s uncle’s amusement park up state.  They serve her well in staving off the boredom inherent in her current situation, until Loki gets up and decides he’d liked to bring their little outing to an end.  He gives Jane no time to argue, just up and vanishes on her.  He takes the desert with him.  Jane blinks her eyes twice and finds that she is no longer staring at a winding plain, but at a concrete wall close enough to touch.  Her room is clean and quiet, the researchers outside going about their business, thinking she has been merely nursing a headache all day.

As Jane cleans up, it strikes her that he’s left the remaining food with her.  Only the Reese’s bag is missing.

**

_Day 71_

**_‘Come on Eileen, oh I swear  
At this moment, you mean everything!’_ **

_‘With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess_  
Verge on dirty  
Ah come on Eileen.’

“Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there’s work to be done.  Do not make us wait for you.”

“Come on, Jane, get moving!  If you don’t hurry, you’ll miss breakfast.  And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I’m going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!”

Once Jacobine is gone, promising, as always, to bring her some ibuprofen later, Jane has not a moment to plan out her ‘day’- whether she will go down to the basement lab and see if Loki will grace her with his presence, or if she’ll stay in and sleep on it, let him come to her. 

She backs away from the door after Jacobine’s footfalls disappear and runs right into his armored chest.  Unbreakable arms hold her flush to him, and Jane is more aware than she’s ever been of the cool air on her bare legs.  She turns beet red as he chuckles.

“Mmmm, you look especially ravishing this morning.”

She squirms in defiant protest, only for him to let go on his own and walk to her dresser, leaving Jane no choice but to cover herself with the bed sheet.  Once it’s secure, she’s treated to Loki rummaging through her many t-shirts and jeans, a disapproving frown curving his lips into an upside down U. 

“No, this won’t do at all,” he says, slamming it shut. 

“Loki, what are you doing?” Jane asks, though a part of her is wondering if he’s finally starting to crack under the pressure and if trying to run would give her a good chance.  All things considered, probably not.

His answer is to take her by the arm and pull her more into the light.  He examines every inch of her for well over a minute until Jane is ready throw caution (and basic common sense) to the wind and bolt.  She feels the pull of his magic, starting at her feet and moving upward.  It covers her from the neck down in tingly heat, and when it goes, it leaves her dressed in a layered, mid-length sun dress, bright red with spaghetti straps.  It clings to her body like it had been made for her and her alone.  Jane isn’t so above it all that she doesn’t stop to admire herself in the mirror once the shock has worn off.  She finds that it’s not just her clothes that he’s changed.  Her hair is shiny and in ringlets that cascade down to her mid back.  She thinks for a moment that he’s made her taller somehow too, until she sees the three inch red pumps on her feet.  They feel more comfortable than any other shoes of their kind ever have on her.  She takes a few steps back and forth and never once feels like she’s about to fall over.

“What is this all about?” she asks.  In the mirror, she sees that Loki has also undergone a wardrobe change.  Gone is the armor she has come to associate him with.  Instead, he wears a perfectly tailored suit jacket over a fitted white button down shirt.  A black tie and a green and gold scarf complete the look, and have Jane openly staring at him, her jaw unhinging at the sight.  He smirks.

“Please, try and control yourself long enough for us to reach our destination, my dear.”

He takes her by the hand, and Jane refuses to look at him again.  It just isn’t fair that he can look _that_ good in human clothes when he’s not even human himself.  There are men who have spent half their lives in suit and tie, who could never pull it off like he can.  Bastard.

“Where are we going?” she spits out. 

He takes no heed of her ill will. 

“Away from here, first of all.”

Jane has some time to brace herself this time, but the journey still takes a lot out of her.  Upon arriving to whatever destination he has in mind, Jane’s mind registers a heavily wooded area in the distance and the sounds of a great party going on behind her, before she’s crouched down in the dirt trying not to lose her lunch all over an innocent ant hill.  There are dirt stains on her dress when she gets back up, but those are taken care of the moment Loki’s keen eye spots them.

“This is good enough,” he declares.

Jane looks around.  They appear to be in a park and, barring the loud music and cheering coming from somewhere down the road, there is not a hint of human life to be found.  All she sees are squirrels, and birds, and the occasional rabbit.  Wherever they are, they are ridiculously overdressed for it.

“Loki, what is this all about?” she demands, exasperation finally winning out.

This seems to be exactly what Loki wanted, because he’s happy as a clam when he takes her hand once more and starts leading her in the direction of the noise.

“Oh my, such a racket going on,” he’s saying, purely for her benefit.  “Shall we go see what the fuss is all about?”

They enter a clearing, which appears to be the main portion of the park.  A parking lot packed with cars is off to one side, but the real action takes place in the center of a crowded dance floor, where people in formal wear and cowboy hats dance to country music or gather around one of the many round tables to partake in hor dourves and talk amongst themselves.  Jane is saved from asking what kind of party this is when a woman in a puffy white dress and a veil walks hand in hand with a suited young man to the head table.  Her bouquet rests on it, and she strokes the flowers with loving gestures as her groom whispers in her ear.  Whatever he’s saying has her in stitches. 

Jane turns to Loki.  “So what is this?  We’re wedding crashers now?”

Loki pretends to be surprised.  “Don’t look at me, Jane.  I just wanted to take a leisurely stroll through the park.  I never expected to find a festive event such as this taking place so close by.”

Once more, Jane eyes his formal wear.  If he thinks she’s going to buy that, he’s either stupid or he thinks she’s stupid.  Or he’s just playing games with her again. 

“Where are we exactly?” she asks.

“I believe your people have dubbed this place, ‘Texas.’”

Yeah, he’s definitely playing games.

“Loki, why the hell are we in Texas?”

“You mean you’ve never desired to see the majestic plains and rich forestry Texas has to offer?”

“Not really.”

He keeps pushing them in the direction of the party.  Any second, she thinks, someone will see them, realize they’re not guests, and throw them out, assuming Loki lets them.  This is a private affair, after all.  Jane knows she wouldn’t want any strangers traipsing about _her_ wedding party.  

And yet, they make it to the floor without a hint of trouble.  All eyes seem to slide right by them.  Not even Loki is getting any attention, and Jane _knows_ that’s wrong.  A few small children run by their feet.  Some of them have icing all over their mouths.  The bride and groom have returned to the dance floor and are moving in time to some upbeat banjo-y music that filters through massive stereo speakers.  The DJ sits behind them, a woman around Jane’s age with boy cut dirty blonde hair and her nose in a magazine.  Heavy strobe lights provide all that she needs to read in the dark, though Jane can see beads of sweat giving the woman’s face an unnatural sheen.

“Hmmm, that’s odd.”  Loki brings a hand to his chin.  “Am I wrong, or is there something familiar about that woman?”

Jane is going to tell him that she doesn’t care and she wants to leave now.  She really does, but now he has her looking closer at the DJ, and she has to admit that woman does ring a bell.  The DJ, sensing she is being watched, drops the magazine.  Mismatched eyes- one brown and one green- lock on Janes.  There is a long moment where both women try to make sense of what they are seeing.  The DJ gets there first, her jaw dropping and a joyful scream ripping from her throat.  Jane is frozen in place.  She can’t stop the woman and she can’t get more than the first letter of her name out before she’s tackled, and Loki has the time of his life watching the spectacle.

“Surprise!”

**

Seeing Nancy Keller again- and being on the receiving end of a spine-crushing hug from the woman- has brought up a lot more memories that should have been lost to Jane forever.  She remembers now that Nancy has the most obnoxious laugh in the known universe, the kind that had everyone hesitant to tell a joke with her nearby, and Nancy _loves_ jokes.

Things don’t seem to have changed much now that Nancy is grown up.  If anything, it’s gotten worse.

“HahahHAAAAHAAAA- Jane, this is incredible.  I mean, who woulda thunk that of all places for you to be hangin’ out with your boyfriend, ya’ll would come here?  And on the day I’m doin’ the Darlton wedding!”

She lets out a whoop and hugs Jane one more time.

 The only consolation is that Loki is no less bothered by the sound of her than anyone else.  He stays off to the side, enjoying the fruits of his labors and taking small bites of a piece of cake he got from… somewhere.  Jane didn’t care where; at least he isn’t spitting it out.  Or laughing at her.

“You look great, Nancy,” Jane says, and it’s not a lie.  From the looks of her, Nancy’s done very well for herself.  Her hair is coifed, her clothes fashionable, and Jane hasn’t missed the enormous diamond ring on her finger.

“Yep.  Best decision of my life, moving here,” Nancy said.  She places her hands the pockets of her overcoat and looks out at the starry sky.  “I found myself a hell of a man- wedding’s in July, but the way- and I got this great gig DJing for special events.”

“More than weddings?”

Nancy snorts.  “Please, I’ve done everything under the sun.  Mostly weddings, yeah, but also proms, parties, bar mitzvahs, even a funeral once.  Remind me to tell you that story one day.  It’s a hoot and a holler.”

Jane is so busy listening and nodding along that she fails to feel her feet moving.  She’s all the way away from Loki by the time she does, but he doesn’t seem to mind.  He’s taken off whatever spell he had keeping them unseen, and now there are a dozen or so girls grouped together at a table, watching him like hungry jackals on the prowl.  Jane can’t be sure they are all single either, and at least two are roughly twice her age.  But really, what does she care?

“If I had to find a downside to it all, it’s that everyone down here is obsessed with country music,” Nancy goes on.  “Sometimes, it’s all I ever get to play.  I can’t even listen to Johnny Cash anymore without getting a headache, but I guess it could be worse.  You wouldn’t believe the wedding I had to work last week.  The couple was nice enough, but they had _the worst taste in music imaginable_.  Their wedding song was an Eddie Murphy song.  Freaking _Eddie Murphy!_ They told me it was playing at the party where they first met, which means they probably met in some strange parallel universe where it’s acceptable to play Eddie Murphy music at parties.  Or anywhere.”

Jane laughs and almost means it.  She’s pretty sure she missed about a quarter of what Nancy just said.   One of those girls has gotten up the courage to ask Loki for a dance.  That he accepts is a surprise, only because Jane was so sure all humans were lower than trash to him, and that the only reason he so much as touched her was because she was the only other person around half the time.  It doesn’t explain the odd burning sensation that takes up her gut when the girl- who’s really just some flighty, giggly thing who barely knows the world and will probably forget all about Loki once the next hot guy comes along- hooks her arms around his neck and rests her head on his chest, letting him the lead.

“…so I said to this guy, ‘look, take back my retainer fee if you must, but I will not play Dancing Queen five times in a row just because it’s your mother-in-law’s favorite.’  And he… Jane?”

“What?”  Jane looks to Nancy, who has been standing next to her and talking all this time with her totally unaware.  Hadn’t she gone back to her post ages ago?  Surely Jane would’ve heard some of what she’s been saying, if nothing else.

Nancy glanced onto the dance floor, in the direction of Loki and his dance partner, and a look of understanding dawns over her.  She bumps Jane’s shoulder.

“Well, if you’re so pissed that your guy has a fan, go and get him!”

It doesn’t hurt, but Jane rubs her shoulder anyway.

“He’s not ‘my guy,’” she says.  “He’s barely even a friend, much less a boyfriend.”

Nancy blinks.  “You guys aren’t together?  Because I could’ve sworn…”

“We have an… _agreement_ , of sorts,” Jane says with great stress on the final three words.  She’d really like to drop this now and let Nancy go back to complaining about people listening to ABBA around her.  “It’s a long story.”

“So it’s just a casual thing right now, huh?” she says with lewd smile.  “Well, Jane, ya’ll have certainly done well for yourself.  That is one fine piece of ass right there.  He must give you a real good time, huh?”

“I don’t discuss that in public,” Jane says.  It comes out harsher than she intended, and Nancy looks taken aback for a moment.  She recovers fast enough to spare Jane any actual guilt.

“Say no more, I know just how you feel.”  Nancy starts back to her post as the pre-played song winds to a close, promising to return as soon as she’s done.  Jane hadn’t known what it was or who sang it, but she has no interest whatsoever in finding out.  Something about that song Loki had chosen for his dance makes her hate it. 

She stands by as Nancy chats with the guests over the microphone, announcing just a few more songs as the party winds down and the bride and groom leave for their honeymoon.  The next song she plays is another one for dancing, something sappy that Jane’s also never heard before.  Whatever it is, that girl isn’t ready to give Loki up yet.  She stops him when he tries to leave her.  Her free hand travels little by little up Loki’s chest-

“I’m gonna go dance.”

Jane leaves Nancy to her work and makes a beeline for Loki.  She turns a couple of heads, but no one dares ask her for a dance. 

“May I cut in?” she asks of Loki.  His eyebrows go all the way up at the bold request.  Jane just knows he’s going to give her hell for this later.  Fine, let him.  The girl on his arm glares at her.  She looks ready to tell Jane exactly where she can stick it before Loki unceremoniously removes himself from her grip and takes Jane by the hand, leading her to the center of the dance floor.  The poor, gobsmacked girl is long forgotten.

“Thank you for that,” he says to her with no attempt at keeping his voice down.  “That girl was absolutely insufferable.”

“I bet.” Jane’s arm goes around Loki’s waist, the other stretched out, hand clasped in his.  The ten or so couples around them copy the routine.  Jane catches sight of Loki’s former dance partner sulking at a far off table. Jane’s spirits rise considerably at the sight of her, for reasons she probably could explain, but doesn’t want to.

“So, Jane,” Loki says in her ear.  “Are you having fun?”

She’s kind of pressed for an answer.  She could lie and have him call her on it, or she could tell the truth and give boost his already bloated ego.

“Well, you… certainly caught be by surprise,” she says lamely.

“That tends to be the logic behind surprises.”

He spins her, a little faster than the rest, reminding Jane that she is in heels and really shouldn’t be dancing like this.  Any second her heel could snap off, and she’ll have a one way ticket to both the floor and a broken ankle.  Loki has things quick in hand before than can happen.  He moves fluidly to catch her, and bend her into a low dip.  Her hair is touching the floor, and then he lifts her. 

Of course, he would be a good dancer in addition to everything else.  He might as well be the physical embodiment of some kind of cosmic punishment. 

_‘Haha here, Jane, have this ridiculously hot and intelligent demi-god with magic powers who is amazing at sex- oh, but he’s also a total psychopath one step away from tearing your spine out at any given moment, so you’d better watch your step.  Haha.’_

It makes her think what she could have done in a past life to deserve this.

“Why did you even bring me here?” she whispers after a long moment. 

“Can’t I do something nice for you after all that you’ve given me?”

Whatever she’s given him, he returns ten-fold, and usually not in ways she wants him to.  When it is in a way she wants him too… she’s not going to think about that right now.  Not while they’re dancing and his hands are so low around her waist that he’s grazing her behind.

“How did you even find Nancy?”

“Oh, so you’d like to hear all about my methods of infiltrating SHIELD under the guise of one of their own and stealing classified information they’ve been keeping on all your known associates?”

Jane gawks.  “Known associates?  I haven’t seen the woman in twenty years, I... you’re lying.”

She doesn’t know why she even fell for that.  That stupid, shit-eating grin should have been a dead giveaway.  Of course, the question of how he really found Nancy remains on the table, but Jane finds her curiosity to be waning.  Why bother questioning it, when she could be savoring the moment with a friend she thought lost.

The song’s end was met with cheers and requests for an encore.  Nancy bobs her head to their shouts, cupping her ear to hear them better.

“Wow, we’ve got a great crowd here tonight, haven’t we?”  Nancy claps, careful of the microphone in her hands.  “I hope you’ve all thanked the bride and groom for giving you all such a good time tonight!  Come on let’s hear it for Bob and Sandy!  Three cheers for the happy couple!”

The guests raise a storm of applause.  The bride and groom wave to the crowd, their pearly whites on full display.  The bride blows a few kisses.  Jane is convinced one of them is aimed at Loki, or it could be the bespectacled old man directly behind Loki, who looks like he’s somebody’s grandfather.  She doesn’t care either way, or so she tells herself.

“I’m gonna go talk to Nancy more,” she says, eyes down and back turned.  “Thanks for the dance.”

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

As she’s walking away, Loki thinks he should have asked her to stay, maybe had another dance.  Barring that, he could have just brought them back to her room and away from all this noise and these unbearable Midgardians.  A blissful night in with the one mortal he could stand would be a gift after the last few hours.  He so much preferred yesterday’s trip, even if the food here was markedly better (though that’s still not saying much).  Even the women fawning over him are worse here.  It could be that they are, on average, less attractive than the waitresses and store clerks of her little desert town.  More likely, it’s just that new problem of his rearing its ugly head. 

He should go ahead and find another woman to dance with.  A sweep of the area tells him there are plenty willing to be his partner.  He should sweep them off their feet and revel in the fact that they’re _not_ Jane Foster and that she is _not_ eating away at him like he thinks she is.  How can she?  She’s just a mortal.  There’s nothing special about her at all.  He’s seen the whole of her enough times to know that there are countless women in this galaxy who make her look like a dirty beggar in comparison.  Certainly none of these women are any better, but they are no worse either.  They’re all more or less the same, these Midgardians.

That’s what makes it so strange that he’s been standing alone on the dance floor like a fool all this time, thinking instead of doing something.

A deep chuckle rings in his ears, one that he knows on a baser level is directed at him.  A man and a woman- both large in body and red faced from alcohol intake- are watching him with dopey, happy grins on their faces, the kind that makes Loki want to burn the flesh from their bones and see if they’re still so cheery.

“May I help you?” he asks in place of this.

 “Sorry, partner,” he says, in a thick drawl Loki has been hearing a lot of today.  “The Missus and I couldn’t help but notice you and yer’ lady friend.”

The woman raises a meaty, well-manicured hand, displaying it for him.  “You two.  Look.  A _dor_ able.  ‘Minds me ‘o me and Harvey here when we were youngins’.”

The husband puckers his lips and mimes kisses all over his wife’s ear and cheek.  She shrieks with laughter and playfully swats at him.

“Oh, don’t mind him.  He’s a big kid sometimes.”

“What can I say?”  The husband somehow manages to wraps his arms all the way around the round woman’s girth.  “Twenty five years of marriage, and I still cannot get enough of this woman.”

“That’s the kind of thing you have to look for in a relationship,” says the woman, like she’s imparting some universal wisdom upon him, and he should feel blessed to hear it. 

When he takes this world, these two will be the first to go.

“You do make a lovely couple,” he says tonelessly, not that they can see it.

“Well thank you, Sugar,” says the woman.  “But you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

Loki puts his hands in his pockets.  “I don’t see why I would.”

The man laughs so hard now that spittle flies from his mouth.  That it doesn’t quite hit Loki is the only reason he’s still breathing. 

“Come on, boy.  Now don’t be telling me you and your lady there haven’t figured it out yet!”

“Figured what out?”

The man glances at his wife, and together they roll their eyes, like this is all some big inside joke of theirs that he’s being left out of.

“Okay, let me spell it out for you.”  The man runs his index finger over the wide brim of his hat, and then points at Loki and Jane in the background in sequence.  “You’re Johnny, and that pretty little thing there?  That’s your June.”

The wife nods along with her husband.  Now Loki knows they’re both mental.  The alcohol has clearly devolved them into a pair of giggling buffoons he should have known better than to engage.  This is why these mortals need him to rule them.  They’re complete rubbish on their own, babbling nonsense at complete strangers like it actually means something.

“Thank you,” he says, stepping back.  “I understand perfectly what you are trying to say.”

He finds Jane with her friend, and isn’t terribly polite about ‘cutting in’ and bringing her back to the dance floor.  Though Jane wants to protest and go back, she doesn’t try to escape.  She even lets him lead when the next song starts playing, something about love being a ‘burning thing’ and making ‘fiery rings.’  The guests are happy to hear it, in any case.  He’s unfortunate enough to spot that couple again, the wife bobbing up and down in her seat as she claps her hands at them; the husband raising his drink for a toast.

“I swear,” he says out the corner of his mouth.  “I do not understand you people at all.”

He spins them away from the sidelines where no one can see them.  Meanwhile, Jane is rolling her eyes.

“Have you ever tried?”

**

_Jane Foster_

  
They don’t stay longer than that.  Her parting words to Nancy are much too brief to satisfy either of them, and a lead balloon settles in Jane’s stomach when they trade phone numbers, and Nancy makes her promise that they’ll keep in touch.

“Don’t be shocked if you get a wedding invite in the mail!” she’d said.  “Be sure to bring a ‘plus one!’”

But Jane’s ‘plus one’ has no desire to let her linger.  Jane will never know if Nancy had turned all the way around before Loki whisks them back to Norway.  She can’t even ask.  Loki’s needful kiss the second they’re alone wipes that thought out of existence, along with the rest of her higher brainpower. 

To Jane’s utter dismay, it’s an _amazing_ night.


	12. Days 85- 88

_Day 85: Jane Foster_

If someone were to walk into Jane Foster’s room and poke around a bit, they would find the following: a simple dresser with the first drawer pulled out an inch; an undeterminable red cloth sticking out from under the mattress; small piles of paper overturned in front of the vanity; Jane Foster herself on the bed, her notebook out and her pen at the ready.  As she writes furiously, they may come to believe that the dedicated scientist is working hard on some new theory.  They’d have to know how focused she is when it comes to her passion.  If they didn’t know that one simple fact, they’d have to be a stranger, in which case, they wouldn’t likely be in her room in the first place.

Regardless, they’d be a mite disappointed when they looked over her shoulder, and found that the greatest source of stimulation her brilliant mind can come up with is one person tic tac toe.  Ten games litter the pages.  She’s beaten herself eight times in a row, but lost the first two times.  The trick, she’d say, is to play the Xs.  You can never go wrong with the Xs. 

Ripping out the page when it’s full, Jane adds one more notch to her mental scorecard.  One more win, and she’ll officially be the undisputed tic tac toe champion of the room.

The grand prize is more tic tac toe.

She hears the rush of wind at her back before she feels the cold.  Shivering, she takes a look at the thermostat, but it hasn’t changed substantially.  Thinking herself underdressed, Jane gets up to the dresser.  A warmer shirt and some sweatpants are what she needs now.  These shorts are not going to cut it.  She finds a green fleece sweater- a minty shade of green she finds rather ugly, making her wonder what possessed her to take it to Norway with her, let alone buy it in the first place.  Jane slips it on over her shirt.  It feels like a fluffy teddy bear is hugging her all the way around.  As warmth seeps from the fabric into her skin, Jane hugs it back with a happy sigh. 

So  _this_ was why she bought it.

A ghostly hand runs along the small of her back, stopping Jane in her tracks.  Frigid air blows into her ear as the room temperature takes a nosedive.  Suddenly, all that is around Jane is pure ice.  Only the bed is untouched, surrounded on all sides by a frosty curtain.  Tiny specks chip off and float through the air, never quite reaching the blankets.  It’s almost like they’re being repelled by something.

“Who’s there?” she calls out.

The hand on her back is very real now.  It presses down on her chest, above her heart, pulling her into a hard body that is somehow warmer than her sweater and cold as the ice all at once. 

“Hello, Jane Foster.”

Jane steps away from him, surprised that he would let her.

“Loki?”

He wears a face Jane has never seen before, but thinks she probably should have.  It comes so natural to him, these darkened eyes, that feral smile, the way his larger body surrounds her on all sides, pulling her into the depths of him.

“You’ve tried my patience for far too long, little Jane,” he says, baring his teeth at her in a horrible, monstrous grin.  “You are mine.  All of you.  And you will deny me no longer.”

Jane shivers for a whole new reason now.  Taking a step back is a bad idea, but there is nothing else she can do.  He follows her, forcing her closer and closer to the bed, and she can do nothing to stop it.

“Loki… why are you doing this?”

His hand shoots out, resting gently- despite her expectations- on her chin, pulling her close.

“Jane, Jane, Jane,” he says,  _that voice_  ripping away her inhibitions, igniting both fear and desire in distressingly equal portions.  “You sweet, innocent thing you.  You really should have seen this coming.”

“Loki…”

Her eyes start to close, as terror and lust do fierce battle in her gut for control.  His hands clamp down on her wrists, and fear wins out.  Jane screams and struggles against him, but his strength is far superior to hers.  Several books and her vanity topple over as Jane comes inches from escaping him.  Of course, he might have just let her think she had a chance.  He might be just a snake playing with his food before going in for the kill.  Jane winds up on her back in the bed, which is bigger and softer than she remembers.  Crawling up the length of her body, he restrains her without effort, first with his hands and then with his magic. 

“Now, now, my pet,” he purrs in her ear as she take in air in gasps.  “Don’t be frightened.  I’m going to take very good care of you.”

 “Wait… Loki… please…”

He shushes her, and her chest heaves as he makes his way down to her stomach, running his tongue over sharp teeth, and-

 **BANG**  
BANG  
BANG

“Ms. Foster!”

Everything stops.  Like a powerful instrumental in the midst of a climatic crescendo, that screeches suddenly to a halt because one man has missed a note. Dr. Ahlberg’s relentless pounding on the door echoes, with a force only second to that of her commanding tone.

“Jane Foster, open the door this instant!”

Jane’s eyes flick to Loki, as he is still on top of her.  She sighs.

“Gemini.”

“I know.”

In a flash, Loki reappears on the footstool, sitting quietly while Jane fixes herself to the door.  She trusts him to have concealed his presence without her having to ask.  It’s been almost three months, and she has to find some kind of common ground with him beyond the physical.  This tiny measure of faith of him seems like a good enough place to start.

She opens the door after a quick check in the mirror that her hair is in place and her face isn’t red or sweaty.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Ahlberg,” she greets the taller woman.  Dr. Ahlberg takes advantage of the staunch difference in height to look over Jane’s shoulder, scrutinizing  _something_ behind Jane’s back.  Maybe she should have known better than to trust him. 

“Ms. Foster, are you injured in any way?” Dr. Ahlberg asks, in the same biting way she would ask any other question.  It means little to Jane, just more reinforcement that Dr. Ahlberg really does have some kind of inexplicable vendetta against her.  ‘Of course I’m concerned about your healthy.  I can’t have you dying in a freak accident before I have a chance to throw you to hungry sharks.’

“I’m fine, Doctor,” Jane says as nicely as she can.  She thinks she hears Loki snickering behind her.  “I was just-“

“What is that?!”

Dr Ahlberg pushes her way into the room, passing Loki like he’s another piece of furniture, all of her attention on the overturned vanity and the books strewn about.  Jane bites her lip.  She’d forgotten about those.

“I was looking for something,” she says, thinking fast.  “I thought it might have fallen behind my vanity, but when I tried to push it aside it fell over.  It set off a chain reaction of sorts, and so that explains the mess.  I’m really sorry-“

“Did you know three different employees have reported strange noises coming from this room?” Dr. Ahlberg steps away from the mess to stand over Jane.  She really is a tall woman, and not just for a petite person like Jane.  “Banging on the walls and screaming.  Do you know anything about that?"

Jane swallows, and is probably far too obvious about it, which is why Loki is shaking his head right now, but what can she do about it?

“Screaming?  Well… when I knocked over the vanity, I was so surprised that I accidentally kicked the wall and hurt my toe.  That’s got to be what they heard.  I mean, I don’t know why else they’d think someone was screaming in here.”

Jane laughs like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, while Dr. Ahlberg narrows her eyes.  If Jane is a naughty child, then Dr. Ahlberg is the perfect strict parental figure.

“It is to my understanding that you requested a day off today due to a headache.”

“That’s right,” Jane says.

 “You are sick,” Dr. Ahlberg says.  “And yet somehow, you are up and walking now like you’re in perfect health.  Quite peculiar, I think.”

“Not really,” Jane says, and she lowers her arms so Dr. Ahlberg won’t see her wringing her hands.  “I’ve always heard that it’s good to get a little exercise when you’re sick, even if it’s just taking a walk around your bedroom.”

She almost laughs it off, but thinks better of it.  What comes out of her mouth sounds like a cross between a sigh and a dry sob, while Dr. Ahlberg looks like she has never smiled before in her life (Jane wouldn’t be surprised).  She studies Jane for what has to be the longest minute and a half of her life, moving on to the dresser and then around the room.  Once more, Jane can’t shake the feeling that Loki is doing something to draw her boss’s attention.  He’s keeping her from leaving.

Why?  Well, why did he do half of the things he did?  Because he’s an asshole and it amuses him, that’s why.

A tube of lipstick bounces off Jane’s foot and into the corner, kicked aside by the irate Dr. Ahlberg.

“Clean this mess up,” she orders.  “When you are finished, get back into bed and don’t come out until you are back to one hundred percent, and if you haven’t reached that by tomorrow morning, I will have you on the next ferry to the mainland before you can blink.  I will not tolerate slackers in my facility.”

She’s out of the room in seconds, like she was never there at all.  The only sign of her presence is the lonely lipstick tube stuck behind the dresser, and the severe palpitations of Jane’s heart as she rounds on Loki. 

He’s on a long chair now, like a desk chair carved by angels.  His feet in the air, he examines one of her tic tac toe games, concentrating harder than he ever has before on anything outside of their bedroom activities.

“What sort of runes are these?” he asks, and quite possibly means. 

Jane rips the paper from him, a sea of unchecked emotion running course through her bloodstream to the part of her brain that controls anger. 

“Do you mind telling me what the  _hell_  that was?”

And he is completely unreceptive to that.  He’d rather fan the flames than be cooperative for once.  Whether or not she’d believe his answer is a different matter, she’d just appreciate the effort.  She should kick herself for expecting that from Loki.  Look at him now, splayed out on her chair, turning one of her tic tac toe games every which way, looking for some secret meaning that isn’t there as if he really doesn’t know that.

“Your boss?” he dully guesses, tossing the paper aside after giving up on it.  “Ahlberg something or other-“

“You told me you’d make sure no one would hear us,” Jane cries. She leans her whole body over the chair, trapping him for as long as he allows her to.  “That’s the only reason I agreed to this stupid roleplay.”

 “Are you going to blame me for this?  Because as I recall, you were the one who suggested we play this game in the first place.  It would ‘spice things up’ as you so eloquently put it.”

“But it was  _your_  idea to do the ‘evil lusty god takes helpless mortal’ thing,” Jane shoots back, failing to bring up the excitement she had secretly felt the day he gave her an intimate play by play of how the game would work.  “And you promised me that you’d sound proof the room like you did that time in Dr. Ahlberg’s office.”

“I did,” Loki says, and the way he says it give Jane the impression that she’s walking on thin ice now.  Too bad she doesn’t give a shit.

“Then would you be  _so kind_ as to explain to me why that happened?”

Loki crosses one leg over the other, making himself comfortable as he reaches into his pocket.

“I suppose in my excitement, I let my attention slip.”  He smiles politely at her incensed face.  “You really are quite lovely when you’re submitting to my will.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Jane says.  Loki pulls an orange package out of his bottomless pocket supply, and Jane snatches it away from him.  “And stop eating these all the time!  Are you trying to make yourself sick?”

Loki frowns, but his eyes are laughing.  “Really, Jane?  Here I thought you  _wanted_  me to partake in Midgardian cuisine.”

“This isn’t cuisine, it’s junk food!”

Jane slams the Reese’s to the floor like a football, but the second it’s out of her hand, it flies right back into Loki’s, and he eats each cup with great relish while Jane sits on the bed thinking about how much it would take for her to develop telekinesis and blow his stupid fat head off his neck.”

“I do so love it when you give me that look like you are planning my imminent demise,” Loki says.  Damn him.  Is he reading her mind?  “It does things to me that I can’t even tell you.”

“Then don’t,” Jane snaps. 

She stomps into the bathroom, leaving the door open.  She has nothing to do in their but curl up in the shower and hope that he’ll grow bored on his own and go away.  Since that’s clearly never going to happen until they find a way out of this godforsaken time loop, and since there’s a rather annoying heat in Jane’s stomach that hasn’t died away since the abrupt end to their game, she can only remain in there for ten or so minutes before her own bodily needs drive her out of her sanctuary. 

She finds that Loki is still there, though she thinks she would’ve known already if he left.  He’s sitting on her bed with a book that can’t be hers, flipping through pages he’s probably long since memorized, and mocking Jane with his indifference.  She stands there for some time before he glances up and ‘notices’ her for the first time. 

“Oh, are you still here?” he asks.

“This is  _my_  room.”

He blinks his eyes twice, then runs them around the ruffled state of the place- the toiletries on the floor and the papers everywhere.

“So it is,” he says like that’s some incredible discovery.  “I should have known.  No room of mine would ever be left in such disarray.”

He goes back to his book, then seems to tire of it and banishes back from whence it came.  Out of thin air, he plucks a new book, thicker than the last and likely heavier too, but he props it up on his knee like it’s featherlite.

These are the moments Jane appreciates as much as she loathes them.  Strange a contradiction it may be, Jane  _needs_  to see Loki like this every now and again.  She needs to see this vain, arrogant, pigheaded man that he truly is beneath all the posturing and playing himself off as an irresistible alpha male.  Enough of that, and she might actually start to believe it, so it helps when he gets taken down a peg by his own arrogance.  He’s not even aware that he’s doing it, and that’s the best part.

He’s like that slacker college kid who never really grew up, and has been coasting through life for so long that the mere thought of responsibility makes him break out in hives.  If that slacker kid happened to be a murderous alien, of course.

One thing is for sure, Jane Foster does not stand for being so blatantly ignored.  She presses her hand flat on the book and pushes it away from him.  It gives with surprising ease, like he’d known from the start that she would do it. 

“Please don’t,” he says casually.  “This is my favorite part.”

The book slams shut.  Jane has just enough time to shriek and pull her hand back, her reflexes fast in ways she’s never known them to be.  She rolls over, putting as much distance between herself and Loki as physically possible.  She hasn’t yet ruled out the possibility of burrowing through the walls.  She doesn’t look up again when Loki starts to chuckle.  He won’t get any sort of satisfaction from her today, that’s for sure. 

When enough time has passed, and Jane feels like she can face him again, she does so with as little emotion as possible.  She straightens her spine and her shoulders.  She holds her head high and never blinks.  She’s needs the perfect poker face right now, one that can fool the God of Lies himself.  In the absence of that, anything that might make him slip and see that she’s not as easy to rile up as he thinks would be good.

The biggest problem right now is that they’ve gone from fervent arguing to idle chit-chat in record time, and it’s all laced with that mutual frustration that has marked every one of their interactions up until now.  Or at least, Jane _hopes_  Loki is as vexed as she is on a regular basis. 

“Look,” she says.  “Maybe we should take a break from this for the day.  I mean, the mood has been pretty handily killed.”

“You don’t need to tell me that.”

Jane ignores the condescending way he just said that and sits down.  Her leg brushes against his, and he stiffens.

“Why don’t you tell me a little bit about what you’re reading,” she says conversationally, and of all the things to catch him off guard and leave him speechless, what does it say about them that this is it?

“Are you trying to be  _civil_  with me, Jane Foster?” he asks, as if the concept of civility is as foreign to him as the sky is to a fish. 

“Well, we’ve basically spent the past month doing nothing but arguing and having sex.  At some point, we have to find some common ground other than that.”

“You’ve clearly never met a married couple from Asgard.”

Jane smiles, and then she processes that.

“We are not a couple!”  She all but jumps off the bed.  “Seriously, don’t you start that too.  I don’t know how it is where you’re from, but around here-“

“Oh I do  _so_  love this little game of yours,” Loki says over her, drawing himself up as well, as if Jane needed another reminder of how freakishly tall he was compared to her.  She _really_ didn’t. 

“What game?” she asks, challenging him.

“You know, the one where you prattle on about all the virtues of Midgard, and how there is really so much more to your useless little race than I give credit for.  Where you waste countless hours with your insipid numbers and rudimentary ideas of where your world comes from and how it works, and then you try to tell  _me_ \- a being so much more advanced than you that it is laughable that I would even allow you in my presence- that  _I_ am the one who knows nothing.”

Jane doesn’t speak.  There are several times that she wants to interrupt and scream herself hoarse, but she lets him go on.  The more he says, the harder she seethes on the inside, until the point comes when it all spills over into a cool numbness. 

“You are so very pitiful.”  There’s sweat gleaming at the top of his brow.  “All of you, but especially you.”

“And how is that?” Jane asks dully.

“You are unlike your fellow man,” he says, smiling.  “I’ve seen the way they are.  This repetition has given me the chance to walk among them, and I have seen firsthand that which I always knew to be fact: that your people are blind to the universe.  They see their lives and their world as something that exists exclusively for them.  When this world becomes too much, they create smaller ones for themselves, and live with the clouds in their heads to keep them deaf to all that they don’t wish to see.  Worst of all, they are content with this meager existence.  Even those who know how fleeting their lives are continue to sit and stare and never try to become more than what they are.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they are just incapable of it, with their fragility and perchance to early death. 

“But then there is you, Jane Foster.  You are a true diamond in the rough.  You see beyond the clouds into something greater than yourself, and you dream of reaching out and touching the sky, of casting your eyes on its wonders.”  His smile becomes a cold, toothy grin.  “But it’s more than just that, isn’t it?  Yes, you don’t just dream of it, you actively seek to  _become_ more than yourself, and you even believe yourself capable of it.  That is why you are pathetic, Jane Foster.  Because even with all the intellect you profess to having, you fail to see what is right in front of your face.”  He lowers his head along with his voice.  “That you are far too small, too weak, and too insignificant to ever be worthy of the universe, just like the rest of your race.”

He’s backed her into a corner.  He has an uncomfortable habit of doing that, and Jane’s only just started to realize why that doesn’t bother her like it should.  They’ll get to that momentarily. 

“You really think humans are so worthless?”

He holds her gaze.

“Quite frankly, yes.”

She nods.

“Then why are you so desperate to rule us?”

The question echoes, though that might all be in Jane’s head, and it may stem from the change that comes over Loki as it’s posed to him.  His face goes blank, long enough for a more base part of Jane’s brain to note how smooth his skin looks.  That train of thought dies with the tight frown and the scrunching of his brow as he exhales hard through his nose, like a bull preparing for a charge. 

“Jane Foster.”  The way he says it is so close to  _that voice_  that Jane finds herself crossing her legs and staring at his lips.  “Do you have any idea how easily I could kill you?”

“Of course I do,” she answers, and now  _she_  smiles.  “But you won’t.”

His body presses into hers.  “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes,” she says, and her bluntness douses the fire in his eyes, even as the one within her rages hotter.  “For two reasons.”  She holds up one finger.  “One, because we both know that no matter what you do to me, I’ll be good as new when the next cycle starts.  You won’t get much satisfaction out of that.”  She holds up another finger.  “And two, you know damn well that if ever tried to hurt me, I would have nothing to do with you ever again, and then you’ll be all alone.”

Jane stands up on her tiptoes, but even that doesn’t allow her to meet his eye.  She gets as far as his mouth. From up close, she sees that he’s breathing as hard as she is.

“If you think I’m bluffing, go ahead,” she says.  “Hit me.”

He doesn’t hit her.  He does exactly what she knew he would do and pulls her flush against him.  She winds up crushed without mercy between the wall and his body.  She’s lost count of how many times it’s been like this, but she knows that if time was passing, there would be a hundred Jane shaped holes in the wall.  There is something like desperation in his kiss that is foreign to her.  She knows rage and lust and leisure by heart, but desperation is fairly new.  He tends to prefer making  _her_ desperate for _him_ , and there is something empowering about turning the tables and making him sweat for once.  She’s starting to understand why he loves doing it.

She starts to trace her fingers along the lines of his breastplate.  His armor is always warm to the touch and this is no exception.  It makes the cold that hits her when she’s nearing his heart, and his entire form turns from solid mass to thin air, all the more jarring.  Jane catches herself short of falling, but still needs a moment to register his absence from her arms and the fact that she is very much alone in the room.

When she does, the scream the rips from her mouth could move mountains.

“You bastard!”

She staggers to the bathroom, shedding her clothes one peace at a time until she’s down to her panties, which get soaked when she steps into the shower stream with them hanging on her ankles.  The water is cool on her heated body, and Jane groans as she turns away from the spray and presses to fingers between her legs onto her clit.  She rubs furiously, conjuring up an image of Loki standing over her, smirking and whispering to her with  _that voice_.

“Bastard.  Bastard.  Bastard.”

She repeats it like a mantra, right up to the moment where she climaxes, and then she sinks to her knees to ride it out, her nails scratching at the wall tiles like they’re his face.  She wants to scream again when she’s done, but the most she can manage is a whisper.  She presses her forehead into the wall, curling herself up and trying not to cry.

“He’s probably watching me right now,” she thinks aloud.  “With that goddamn invisibility or whatever it is.  He’s probably laughing at me.”

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

Down in the dank sewer tunnels, Loki’s fist collides with a rocky wall.  It crumbles at his feet, specks of dust and rubble bouncing off his other hand as he runs it along his throbbing shaft at a quickening pace.  He bites his tongue to keep from swallowing it.  In his mind, Jane is naked on his bed in Asgrad, her hair whipped over her shoulder as she beckons him.

He comes with a moan and a curse.

“Stupid.  Little.  Mortal.”

He growls as the waves of his orgasm leave him.  It’s not the first time in his long, long life that he’s felt the need to pleasure himself, but never before has it left him feeling so empty and unsatisfied.  Even if his bodily needs have been met, his mind is in a tizzy.  It’s likely to remain so until he either returns to her or finds some other paramour to fulfill his needs.  If Jane Foster thinks she can use her feminine wiles to cow him, she has another thing coming.  He knows very well how appealing he is to the opposite sex.  With his legendary silver tongue alone, he could have any woman he wants eating out of the palm of his hand.

_‘Any woman except her.’_

Sighing heavily, Loki cleans himself up and replaces his armor.  He rests within tunnels that are both filthy and disdainful to look at, but for once, he has nothing to say about it.  He’d much rather close his eyes and not wake up until a true new day has dawned and this entire nightmarish repetition is nothing more than a memory.

That would, of course, mean waking up in a cell with three square meals delivered by a foot soldier, but at least he would have no more Jane Foster to conflict his mind, no Thanos trying to tear him apart for the tesseract, and most importantly, time would be moving as it should.

He could even pretend that the repetition had never happened at all and that he’d been asleep ever since he was dragged back to Asgard.  At this point, he’d be almost happy to see his false-father again, just to prove that everything was the way it was supposed to be.  That he was the same rebel pet to the royal family, and Jane was the same nothing of a human whose only purpose in life is to swoon over Thor and give him an even fatter head than he already has.  Just like everyone else who’s ever been in his presence. 

Such a pitiful existence would be a welcome reprieve, if only for how simple it would be. 

Loki transports himself out of the catacombs to an unused suite at a New York hotel called ‘Plaza’ that he’d found while wandering one day.  A food peddler called it the best ‘joint’ in the whole city before trying one more time to pitch his twisted dough long strips of breaded meat to Loki.  He removes his armor and gets into bed, which is subpar, but good enough for now.  He’s in no more of a mood to sleep on a rock than he is to sleep in Jane Foster’s bed.  This one is cold and empty and exactly what he wants it to be.

In spite of himself, and how highly unimpressed he is with ‘the best fancy joint in the whole city,’ he hopes he’ll wake up here in the morning.

**

_Day 86: Loki Laufeyson_

“Sir, we’re ready to go.”

“Go find the tallest building you can and jump.”

“Yes, sir.”

**

_Jane Foster_

**_‘Come on Eileen, oh I swear  
At this moment, you mean everything!’_ **

****_‘With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess  
Verge on dirty,  
Ah come on Eileen.’_

“Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there’s work to be done.  Do not make us wait for you.”

“Come on, Jane, get moving!  If you don’t hurry, you’ll miss breakfast.  And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I’m going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!”

Jane lies on her back, closes her eyes, and counts to ten.  When she opens them, it’s still the same concrete ceiling staring back at her, and Jacobine is still banging on the door.  She shouts for Jane like she always does.  Experience tells her that another twelve to fifteen seconds of silence will drive her off, at least temporarily.  She’ll have to keep playing sick if she really wants another day to herself. 

Jane has a strong feeling that’ alone’ today really will mean alone, so right before Jacobine is scheduled to give up and leave, Jane sits up.

“I’ll be right out, Jacobine.  I just overslept.  Hang on.”

**

This is not a very good way to kill time, as Jane soon discovers when the boredom of listening to information she both already knows and never cared about to start with hits her like a boot to the head.  Dr. Ahlberg drones on and on to the assembled scientists while they all take detailed notes like the diligent worker bees they are.  Jane is pretty sure that’s how Loki would describe them.  She acknowledges that one little fact and then goes back to pretending he doesn’t exist outside the pages of a book, one she never should have read in the first place, because now she’s imaging him on a farm somewhere having far too much fun horseback riding through the fields, dressed rather suspiciously like Colin Firth in that one Pride and Prejudice adaptation that she and her mother watched eight times in a row.

This isn’t working.

She read somewhere once that trying to avoid thinking about something just makes you think about it more.  Seems to be the case right now.

She spends the rest of the hour writing whatever down whatever comes to mind.  The periodic table of elements becomes the preamble of the US Constitution, which becomes the first few lines of ‘O Captain, My Captain,’ which becomes a crude doodle of a man on a diving board about to jump. 

Time moves swiftly from the end of the meeting, throughout Jane’s observatory time (which she spends everywhere except at the observatory) to her after lunch idle time with Hilda and Jacobine.

“I‘d never had a sip of alcohol before that night. It was probably the craziest thing I ever did, but I lost the bet and I’m not one to go back on my word.”

“Hmmm… and all you had were a couple of beers. Pfft- that is not wild, my friend.”

“Well, we can’t all be as daring as you.”

Their giggling is drowned out by Jane’s own laughter.  Why she is laughing, and so uproariously at that, she doesn’t know.  She is similarly unclear as to why Hilda and Jacobine’s clear confusion and discomfort with her actions is even funnier to her that she laughs even harder.  Maybe she’s finally losing her mind for real.

Sure took her long enough.

“Okay, that’s a good story,” Jane says once she has more of a grip on herself, “but I’ve got one even better.”  She pulls her chair up closer to theirs.  “Listen to this: in my first year of Grad school, I went to a party at a bar with some friends.”

“A bar party?” Hilda cracks a smile.  “No offence, Jane, but you really don’t seem like the party type.  I mean, Jacobine here is an animal compared to you.”

Jacobine wordlessly pouts.

Jane shrugs.  “I wish I could say you’re wrong, but I can’t.  I felt completely out of place with all my friends off getting drunk and hooking up.  I’d been so busy getting my Master’s degree that I hadn’t gone on a single date in over a year.  Even then, hook ups were not my thing, but there was this one guy who started talking me up.  He was handsome and charismatic and he smelled really good, so I kind of went back to my place with him, and  _boy_ did we have fun.”

Hilda whistles.  She sticks out a fist, which Jane bumps back.  Jacobine, the odd one out for a change, mostly keeps out of the conversation and looks over her notes.

“Of course, he was gone when I woke up the next morning. He left behind a note on my dresser.  It was pretty basic: ‘Thanks.  Had fun.  Let’s do it again sometime.’  And he rather conspicuously forgot to leave his address or phone number.”

Hilda makes a sympathetic sound and wraps an arm around Jane, who has been regretting telling this story from the very first word.

“I should have known he was just screwing with me the whole time.”  She runs a hand through unusually matted hair.  “Do you know what line he used on me?  ‘Did it hurt when you fell from heaven.’  I actually fell for that line.”

“Oh, don’t blame yourself,” says Hilda.  She spreads her hand out on Jane’s back and pushes in. Her hand is very warm.  “You were young and inexperienced.  It could’ve happened to anyone.”

“Bet it wouldn’t have happened to you,” Jane says.

“You don’t know that.”

Hilda retracts her arm and inches away from Jane, just enough to be noticeable and get Jacobine to cast a questioning glance at her friend.  Jane knows better than to press.

“I have a better story,” she says, quietly. “This one time, I fell for a guy I met while I was working.  He liked me back, at least I think he did, but we didn’t know each other long enough to start dating.  He had to leave because of a family thing and he promised me he’d keep in touch and come back as soon as he could.  Over a year went by, and I never heard a word from him.  Should go without saying I was pissed.”

“Of course,” says Hilda, nodding.  “Go on.”

“Well, I tried my hardest to forget about him.  I threw myself into work and tried to get on with my life as normal.  Then one day, I was at this little bar in a coastal town.  I’d been taking a vacation to clear my mind.  All of a sudden, this guy comes up to me, and when I get a good look at him, I realize that he’s a dead ringer for my ex’s younger brother.  So naturally, I slept with him immediately.”

“Ooooh, good revenge.”  Hilda is grinning again.  “I approve.”

“Knew you would,” says Jane.  “It would have been better if it had actually been his brother and not just a lookalike.  I came away from the whole thing only feeling a little better.  It wasn’t until later that I realized the guy I slept with didn’t just  _look_  like his brother.  It _was_  his brother.”

If either Hilda or Jacobine had been drinking something, chances are they’d have spat it out.  They gaping makes Jane fidget, and then Hilda recovers and goes into hysterics.

“Hahahahaha- oh god, that’s rich- ahahahahahah- Jane I severely underestimated you.  You are an angel of perfect vengeance.”

She keeps laughing until the contagious mood gets to Jacobine.  They fall into each other laughing, but Jane can no longer find it in her to join them.  She takes an unconscious look at the clock to see how much longer before it’s time to go.  The time is now quarter past five, a fully thirty minutes since the invasion was supposed to begin.  That’s at least one thing she can rule out on her list of possible things Loki could be doing right now.

God damn him, he’s unavoidable.

The chance to see how her day would have ended without Loki’s interference isn’t attractive to her anymore.  She’d rather go back to her room to sleep and come up with new excuses to use tomorrow.  She’s getting bored of her old ones.

“I’m just going to use the bathroom,” she lies.  It comes so easily to her now.

“No problem, Jane, we’ll go on without you,” says Hilda.  She looks just about ready to prostate herself before Jane and kiss her feet.  “We’ll tell Dr. Ahlberg that you’re trampling some guy’s chest with your high heels.”

“Please don’t,” Jane murmurs.

She stops walking on a whim and turns around.

“Jacobine, ave-hay a ood-gay ay-day.”

Jacobine blinks and tilts her head to one side.

“Uh… what?”

Jane shakes her head, which has sunk so low that she can hardly lift it.

“Nothing, Jacobine,” she says.  “Nothing at all."

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

He’s back in the park in Manhattan.  He doesn’t know what he’s doing here, in a place where there is nothing for him.  There’s nothing for him anywhere on this miserable rock to be honest.  All there is here is a curse he can’t break and a woman he can’t understand.  He simply couldn’t take the isolation of the catacombs any longer.  Hours of reflection and fighting off the Other’s influence had left him with nothing but greater frustration and a body that ached for movement. 

(He had almost considered letting his most hated ‘ally’ in for a stimulating chat, but thought better of it in the end.)

This park is the polar opposite, full of sound and activity and life.  It becomes a war zone on less pleasant days.  Everyone here is destined to die or lose someone to death should he choose it.  He can’t even remember the last time he summoned the Chitauri army to decimate them.  Perhaps it was ten days ago, perhaps twenty, or perhaps it was just yesterday and he’s so far removed that not even a monster’s beating affects him anymore.

Said monster must be furious waiting for him.  They all must be.  Well, they can stew in their own juices waiting for him all day and tomorrow too.  Maybe one day he’ll indulge in them again, but that day is not today.

He gets up from his bench and walks along the path.  There’s a zoo up ahead where a crowd has gathered around an aquatic beast that barks at them and jumps into the water.  This is the most incredible sight the audience has ever seen if their cheers are any indication. 

He has to leave them quickly, before their hollowness makes him long for Jane Foster’s company any more.

He takes a path that is familiar to him, but he doesn’t remember why until he hears that tinkling little voice.

“Daddy, where are you?  Daddy!”

Oh, yes.  That.

He picks up the pace, nearly bowling over a elderly couple and a woman walking a dog.  The crowd thickens up ahead, and he could even transport himself away if he wishes (the ensuing commotion would give Thor and his friends something to do ). 

In the time it takes him to go over his options, the child catches up to him.  She runs into his path, making him stop, and puts her hands on her knees as she catches her breath.  Her pigtails cover her face, which is red and puffy from crying.

“Mister, have you seen my Daddy?”

This time, Loki doesn’t delegate that with a response.  He side-steps the child and marches off.  She is a precocious little thing who doesn’t take the hint.

“Wait!  Please tell me where he is!  I’m lost and it’s gonna get cold tonight.  I don’t have my warm coat!”

Her voice is so shrill, like a banshee’s shriek.  Why has no one else said anything?  There are literally hundreds of people walking around who would be far more suited to helping a misplaced Midgardian child.  Are they really so uncaring?

“Mister!”

Growling, Loki whirls around.  The movement is sudden, stopping her short of running to him again.

“What makes you think I have any idea where your father is?”

Her eyes are almost comically enormous.  She’s the kind of girl Mo- Frigga would have doted upon, picked flowers with, and taught magic to, had the fates granted her a daughter.

“Don’t you do work with him?” she asks.

“Excuse me?”

She points at his human disguise.  “You’re wearing a suit.  My daddy wears suits to go to work because he says all the people he does work with wear suits.  You’re wearing a suit, so you must do work with him, so do you know where he is?” 

She’s very patient awaiting his answer, clasping her hand over her stomach and rocking back and forth on her heels.  It’s highly undignified even for a child.  Someone should teach her some manners.  If she ever is found, Loki hopes her parents (assuming they’re less inattentive than her current situation implies), give her a stern lecture about bothering strange people in the streets.  You never know who is trustworthy and who is out for blood.

There’s no dignity in killing a child, though.  Loki knows this, and he leaves her to cry for help from an uncaring world that he is not part of.

**

_Jane Foster_

She doesn’t go back to her room.

She wants to, really wants to, but there is something that keeps her from turning in that one direction or taking a certain step forward.  She uses the public restroom and avoids the southwest lab where she is supposed to be at this time of day.  The lounge is similarly off-limits until Jane can guarantee that the only ones in there are the janitor and the employees who’ve never met her before, and would neither know nor care that she wasn’t supposed to be there.  That takes about two hours of hiding out in a stall.

She ignores the Norse Mythology book right off the bat and goes back to Pride and Prejudice, picking up where she left off all those cycles ago, back when she was alone and life was simple.  She gets about three pages in, but Mr. Collins’s ass-kissing of Lady Catherine isn’t so funny today.  She closes the book and lets it rest on her lap as she throws her head back and tries to sleep a while.

It works better than she thinks it will.  She next opens her eyes to a slightly dimmer room than before and a face staring back at her from the shadows.

“Just going for a bathroom break, huh?”

Jane jumps out of her seat.  Hilda is smiling down on her and seems unbothered by Jane’s distress.  Jane falls the rest of the way to the floor.  Half of her body had been off the chair already, and this room’s clock, now in plain view, shows an hour hand on the seven where it had been halfway to the six last she checked. 

“I was sleeping,” Jane mumbles, thinking aloud and not counting on Hilda to respond.

“At least you didn’t doze off on the toilet.  That would have been embarrassing.”

Trust her to do it anyway. 

What was Hilda even doing here at this hour?  Shouldn’t she be… Jane finds herself at a dead end as she realizes she never got through the work day long enough to find out where Hilda and Jacobine went in the evening.  ‘Not with her’ was the best she had.

“Looks like I’m not the only one who needed a break.”  Hilda raises her arms to stretch.  They gracefully swipe through the air around Jane’s head as she pulls herself off the floor.  “I don’t blame you.  Ahlberg’s an even bigger hardass at night than she is during the day.  I figure she’s antsy to get us all into bed so she can sneak into our rooms and suck our blood.”

Jane can’t bring herself to find the humor in that.  She’s a little too groggy from the nap, and her legs are stiff and chaffed from being in so bad a position for so long.  Jane rarely, if ever takes naps during the day.  Far too much work to get done.  Darcy had once joked that Jane would transplant her brain into a never-eating, never-sleeping robot body if she could, and while Jane might not go that far, she does at least agree that she’s a bit of a workaholic.

 “I feel awful,” she moans, rubbing her head.

“Yeah, if I fell asleep on a crappy wooden chair and then tried to slither to the much more comfortable linoleum floor, I imagine I’d feel like shit too.”  Hilda props her elbows up on the narrow arm rest, keeping perfect balance as she waits for Jane to consume the aspirin tablets that she’s just placed on the end table for her.  Jane nods her thanks and gulps them down dry.  Ironically enough, she only notices the buzzing in her head now that she’s taken something for it.

“Okay, come on now,” Hilda says.  “What’s on your mind?  And don’t give me any junk about it being private or that you don’t want to talk about it.  Trust me, I’m the best listener you will ever meet in your life.”

Jane assesses Hilda, her flawless as ever appearance and the shade of lipstick that Jane has seen so many times now that she’s jaded by it.  If she ever decides to wear make-up regularly, she’ll be avoiding that color at all costs.  It looks good on Hilda, though.  Too good.  It’s occurred to Jane that Hilda might in fact be an alien, or else a secret Hollywood actress with a private team of make-up artists to make her look perfect every morning.

She also sees a very forceful determination in Hilda’s eyes.  She’s not going to let Jane go without some answers.

“I’m just stressed out about things,” Jane says.   _‘Keep it vague as possible,’_ she tells herself.

“That’s not new,” Hilda says.  “Everyone here is stressed!  It comes with the job.  Just look at poor Henrik over there.  His latest experiment literally blew up in his face last week, and he hasn’t left that chair ever since.”

The middle-aged man with the unshaven face that’s been out cold since the moment Jane walked in lets out a hack and a snore and turns his head towards the wall.

 “So can I get a few specifics maybe?”  Hilda drums the fingers of one hand on another.  “If it’s work related, I can’t do much more than suffer with you, just a fair warning.”

“Well, they do say that misery loves company.”

Hilda giggles, and Jane comes close to joining her.

“That’s not really it, is it?” asks Hilda, her mirth vanishing in an instant.

Jane wonders if she’s always been this easy to read or if Hilda is just really intuitive (she hopes to God it’s the latter, otherwise that poker face of hers is never going to work with Loki).

“It’s… part of it,” Jane says, and it’s not entirely a lie.  She is stressed out about work, just not the same kind of work as Hilda.  “I’ve just been thinking a lot about… things.”

“Could they be more personal things?” Hilda asks.  Jane opens her mouth to speak, but Hilda beats her to the punch.  “Matters of a more…  _romantic_  pursuit maybe?”

“W-well, it’s-“

“A romantic pursuit of the ‘slept with the brother of my ex’ variety?”

Oh yeah, Jane’s an open book.  No amount of intuition in the world could bring someone to so specific a conclusion without outside help.  Jane should have let that one old school friend of hers teach her to play cards when she offered it.  That poker face is utterly useless.

Oh well.  No getting out of it now.

Jane takes one more look at the clock, to see that ten minutes have passed.  It’s gone by so fast, but Jane just knows the minutes are going to tick by much slower from here on in.

“I guess… let me put it to you this way,” Jane pauses for a long time, long enough that it becomes awkward.  She just needs to find the right way to phrase this without sounding crazy or wanting to throw up all over herself.  “Has there ever been someone in your life who… I don’t want to say you have  _feelings_ for them necessarily.  Someone who is just… a constant presence in your life, who normally is not someone you would get along with.  It’s just that you wind up spending so much time with them due to forces beyond your control, and you start to develop…  _something_  for them.  But I don’t mean a romantic sort of thing, it’s more like… you feel better when they’re around because you feel like you have someone who really understands you.  Like, maybe you wish it could’ve been someone else, because God only knows this person is one of the biggest assholes who ever lived, but… I don’t know, as time goes on, you start to wonder what it would be like to go back to how things were before they were in your life and how weird that would be after everything you’ve gone through.  Even though you know better, part of you really wants them to stick around, because against all odds, you’ve become…  _comfortable_  with them.  They make you feel… just… am I making any sense at all?”

“No.  Not really.”

Jane sinks back to the floor.  This must be what a deflating balloon feels like. 

Does Hilda really have to be so upfront about it?

“I take it you’ve never heard of sugarcoating,” Jane says.

“Nah, I know what that is, I just don’t like it very much.”  Hilda crosses one leg over the other and taps her foot.  “I do kind of know what you’re talking about, though.”

Jane perks up.  “You do?”

“Yeah,” Hilda says.  “I mean, I don’t know about all that unresolved sexual tension stuff, but I  _do_  know what it’s like to fall for someone you have no chance with without meaning to.”

“I haven’t fallen for anyone.”  It’s defensive and Jane knows it.  Hilda knows it to.  That smirk she’s wearing is far too Loki-like for its own good.

“Okay, gotcha.  As I was saying, I know how it feels to be in close quarters with someone for a long time and wind up in love with them.  It really sucks a lot, or maybe that was just me.”

“Did he not like you back?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”  Hilda’s eyes become downcast.  It’s the farthest from merry Jane has ever seen her.  “There was a- a conflict of interests, let’s say.  Pretty much the only way I’d have a chance would be if I got one of those sex change operations.”

Jane gives a silent ‘oh’ and nods her head.  She presses her dirt covered hand into Hilda’s immaculate one, and feels bad about that for all of a second.  She doubts Hilda will hold it against her when she clearly needs some comfort right now.

“Now I feel bad for complaining,” Jane says.

Hilda shakes her head.  “No, don’t worry about me.  A little case of unrequited love isn’t going to get me down.  I realized long ago that it’s better to have a friend for a hundred years than nothing for a lifetime.”

“That’s a good way to look at it,” Jane says, squeezing Hilda’s hand softly as the other woman’s breath hitches.  “I bet if everyone thought that way, we’d all be better off.”

“A-hem.”

Jane knows that cough.

Hilda knows it too.

The breezy air of their conversation goes stale as Dr. Ahlberg makes herself known.  She’s as pointed and prim as Jane remembers, even with her hair tied back looser for the evening, from the regular knot to a tight ponytail.  It makes her face look somewhat younger, but for that ever present scowl which could only be on the face of a woman who had lived long and seen much.

“What is this?” she points at Jane and Hilda in turn.  Hilda gets up and comes to stand between Jane and the doctor.

“We were just talking,” she says.  “Girl talk.  Talking about guys and all that.  I mean, I know you wouldn’t understand things like that-“

“Hilda!” Jane hisses.  Her friend must have some kind of death wish to be talking like that to a woman who holds their livelihood and possibly their lives in her hands.  Hilda doesn’t back down, though.  Not even when Dr. Ahlberg’s trademark death glare is turned on her.

“I see,” she says stiffly.  She steps up, just a few inches shorter than Hilda.  They are both almost supernaturally tall compared to Jane.  “Well, I’m so very glad that you two have grown close.  I will say, Dr. Borgman, I don’t appreciate your tone, or your behavior these past few days.  Unless you learn some respect for authority, I may have no choice but to send you home.  I’m sure neither of us want that, do we?”

Jane can’t see Hilda’s face, but the creeping itch in her spine tells her she doesn’t want to.

“No, Doctor.  I understand,” she says.

Dr. Ahlberg gives the tiniest incline of her head, and then her hard gaze shots to Jane, who feels like she’s just lost three feet of height.

“As for you, Dr. Foster, do not let me see you slacking off on my time again.  If you wish to know how to deal with men, then know this: you will get nowhere on love and fidelity alone, so you’re better off spending more time concentrating on your work and less time worrying about your stagnant love life.”

She’s gone as fast as she arrived.  Loki must be teaching people that teleportation thing of his.  Only the faint rise and fall of Dr. Ahlberg’s feet can prove to Jane that she was really there, and long after those are gone, her words linger.  They fly around Jane’s face and into her ears, repeating themselves as loudly as the day Dr. Ahlberg expressed to ‘Jane’ how she really felt about her.

_‘You will get nowhere on love and fidelity alone.’_

_‘I_ loathe _you.’_

One day, Jane will have to sit down and really think about what she could have done to make Dr. Ahlberg hate her so much.

“She says the strangest thing sometimes,” Jane thinks aloud.

Hilda sighs.  Jane forgets for a moment that she’s still there and misses a breath.

“Believe me, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

He’s back in her room, has been since dusk.  It had been much earlier in the city he left behind but time works strangely on Midgard.  They either track it differently depending on location, or the sun itself creates a discrepancy that sees one side of the planet light and the other dark.  There’s a good chance that Loki studied this once upon a time, only for the knowledge to slip away as he delved into more worthy pursuits of magic and politics.

As it is, he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing here.  There is no reason for him to come back to Jane Foster, except for that he misses her, and there is no way he’d ever entertain such a notion, even if there might have been a shred of truth to it.  Just a shred, mind you.

He waits for her by the dresser.  It’s opened a crack and he can see a flash of silky red that he recalls removing from Jane’s person during a previous tryst.  Heat starts to build and his cock twitches in his pants.  He closes his eyes and wills back the need calling up whatever disgusting imagery he can think of to stave it off (Volstagg eating at a banquet always does the trick).  He doubts that after what happened yesterday, Jane Foster is going to be up for a romp.  He wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to throw him out after what happened yesterday.

Her door starts to open.  Jane Foster is so small and skinny that she only needs to make a foot of space to slip inside.  She closes the door behind her, leans against it and lets out a sigh so long that it might as well be her dying breath.

Upon turning around, she falters on the first step.  Her eyes are trained on Loki.  He’s made sure to put himself directly in her line of sight.  She appears less startled than he expected, not that his continued presence in her life isn’t something she should be used to by now.  The screams and cursing of his name he’s been anticipating also do not come.  She spends a second or two staring at him- making certain that it’s really him standing there in person- and then she starts again for the bed, shedding her pants as she goes.  He lingers unashamedly on her backside, clothed in that plain undergarment of hers that melds all too well to her form. 

With another sigh she flops down on the bed, reaching below for a book.  After a time, in which her eyes move back and forth down the lines in a way that can only mean she really is reading, Loki concludes that yes, she  _does_  intend to ignore him tonight, and that he might as well just go and leave her be.

Might as well leave her alone tomorrow too.

And the next day.

And the next day.

And the next.

They’d probably both be happier.

 _‘But then you’ll be all alone,’_  says a voice in his head.  It’s not the regular voice of reason that everyone else seems to have, and that maybe he even had a long time ago.  This one is new and sultry, and sounds awfully like the woman whose space he’s invading.  He has to take one more look at her to make sure she didn’t just speak to him, and he really did imagine it in some deep seated part of his psyche that he’s worked to suppress.  He finds that he is far too comfortable sliding down the wall onto the floor and pulling out his favorite old spell book for some light reading of his own.

**

_Day 87:_ _Jane Foster_

**_‘Come on Eileen, oh I swear  
At this moment, you mean everything!’_ **

****_‘With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess|  
Verge on dirty,  
Ah come on Eileen.’_

“Time to get up, Ms. Foster, there’s work to be done.  Do not make us wait for you.”

“Come on, Jane, get moving!  If you don’t hurry, you’ll miss breakfast.  And I swear, Hilda better not have taken all the coffee again, or I’m going to take that precious headband of hers and make her eat it!”

Of course, Loki is gone by the time Jane wakes up.  He had sat on her floor with his book for so long last night that some part of Jane thought he’d have to be there the next morning, no matter how impossible it was.  The wall where he had rested was cleansed of his essence- the thick, masculine scent of him washed away as if it had never been.  Her entire room has been reset, in fact.  The shoes she had kicked under her vanity are now neatly placed next to it.  The dresser she hadn’t bothered to close is shut tight, and the plain white shirt she had changed into for a change of pace was back to that same old red that Jane used to think exciting vibrant.  She’s never going to wear it again if they get out of this.  Just like she’s never going to visit an island or listen to a 1980’s British New Wave band ever again.

It’s not long after Jacobine goes off and Jane has pulled her old forest green top over her head that Loki reappears.  He stopped making a show of it a long time ago, quite literally showing up in the blink of an eye on her bed, in her drawers, or right behind her.  Today he is none of those, he’s just off by the tiny window, staring out at the same old ocean waves that used to be soothing, looking even more bored and out of it than Jane feels.

“Morning,” she says.

“Hmmm…”

No sarcastic remarks.  That’s not a good sign.

“Are you hungry?”

“I already ate.”

 _‘Liar,’_  Jane thinks.  Unless there’s an empty jumbo Reese’s bag hidden in his pocket, she’s not going to believe that for a second.

“You want to try the roleplay thing again?” she asks.  She’s ready to offer to be his sex slave for the week if it’ll just get him to talk to her.

“Maybe some other time.”  He steps away from the window.  He’s wearing human clothes today without even needing to. 

He sits down on her bed, and not even in a sexual or inviting way.  He’s more concerned with the floor than the fact that Jane is shuffling over to sit with him.  Her will not to has long since crumbled at her feet.

“This whole thing really sucks, doesn’t it?”

Loki gives her a questioning look.

“I mean it’s bad.  It’s… we’re in a really awful mess,” she says.

“Then you should just say that,” he says, stretching his legs out in a straight line, “rather than mangling your own language to get your point across.  If you really wish to talk about sucking-“

“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence,” Jane says, but secretly she couldn’t be happier to see his old mischievous self re-emerge.

 “Is it my fault there is nothing to do?” he moans.  “Present company excluded, I haven’t found a single person, place, or thing on this planet that can keep my attention for longer than five minutes.”

The side of Jane that takes gleeful satisfaction to his admission ( _‘I knew you would miss me you big faker,’_ ) is sadly overshadowed by the side that sees them as kindred spirits in that regard.  She always thought his ability to go wherever he pleased whenever he pleased would stave off boredom, at least for a while, and that the only reason he continued to come back to her was either the sex or because he just loved to annoy her.  It’s one of those rare moments that Jane is happy to be wrong.

Her eyes start to droop, though her body tells her that she is rested (her mind is always another story).  They snap back open when a thought strikes her.  It hits her hard in the face of Loki’s whining, something she knows it would be most logical to ignore.  Now that the thought is in her head, she just can’t stop herself from voicing it.

“I was thinking… you like to lie and cheat and screw people over for your own amusement, don’t you?”

He doesn’t turn around; he lifts his head all the way up and meets her eye that way.

“I can’t tell if you’re trying to insult me or not.”

“It’s just that I might know a place here on Midgard- earth- whatever- that you would enjoy.”

He doesn’t look like he believes her.

“Oh?” he says.

Jane swallows.  She’s been doing a lot of praying lately, and slowly forgetting that she doesn’t believe in that kind of thing.  She does it again now, asking that this not be something she regrets later on.

“It’s this city back in America, just a few states away from New Mexico where I used to live,” she says.  “It’s called Las Vegas.”

**

_‘I knew I was going to regret this.’_

The truck goes over a pothole, jostling it’s cargo and the hog-tied woman rolling around on the floor.  Jane has been wrestling with her bounds for ten minutes, and has succeeded in nothing but making them tighter.  She should have paid more attention to all those stupid action/adventure movies where that one character got captured and somehow managed to work their way out of captivity just in time for the heroes to come and save them.

Her biggest concern right now, barring the obvious, is the dress Loki put her in and how it’s been riding up on her ass little by little with each bump in the road.  She’s pretty sure her panties are sticking out by now, but at least she’d managed to talk Loki out of putting her in sexy lingerie or, worse, a thong when he’d magicked her into this ridiculous cocktail dress that looked more like someone had painted her body sequin blue. 

The truck bounces, harder this time.  Jane goes airborne and lands hard on her shoulder.  She thinks it might be dislocated, because she’s pretty sure her arm is not supposed to bend that way.  The pain makes it difficult for her to listen to the voices coming from the driver’s seat.  The last she heard from the grizzly sounding men is that the driver made a wrong turn on Casino Drive and that the bitch in the trunk is smoking hot and it’s a shame they won’t get a piece of her before the boss gets her.

“Loki, you can rescue me whenever you’re ready!” Jane shouts at the air.  “The sooner the better.”

One of the men slams something metallic against the wall, barking at her to shut up.  Jane sighs and goes back to working with the rope binding her wrists.

The truck eventually stops after what feels like hours.  The door slides open, and in the dark of the night with only a dying streetlight to guide her, the man standing there is but a silhouette.  He would be a menacing silhouette, but she’s spent the last few ‘months’ hanging out with the Norse God of Mischief.  There’s very little that scares her anymore.

“Boy, you’re prettier than I thought you’d be,” says the man.  “I thought my boys might’ve been exaggerating but…” he gives a low whistle.  Jane rolls her eyes.  “I guess this must be kind of a shock to you, getting kidnapped like this.  I’m sorry if we’ve disrupted your night in any way, but I’m afraid I can’t let your boyfriend get away with cheating me out of my money.  I worked hard for it, you know.  Lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into building my practice.  Some of it was mine.”

 _‘Oh, aren’t you clever,’_ Jane thinks.

“So,” the man steps up into the truck.  There’s something shiny in his hand.  “Here’s how it’s gonna work, dollface, you’re gonna come with me, and when your guy shows up, you’re gonna sit there and cry for him to save you like a good little damsel, and then you’re going to _really_  cry once I lay his corpse out at your-“

Green light flashes.  It blinks in and out so fast, but Jane makes out a bearded face and a long, gruesome scar running down one cheek.  Then her captor flies across the truck and slams headfirst into a stack of boxes.  It collapses all over him, and Jane thinks he might be dead until he starts to moan.

Her savior is tall and wears a helmet with curved horns.  Jane still thinks that design is completely absurd, but she’ll save the criticism for later.

“Where the hell were you?” she demands, rubbing her injured shoulder with tender motions

Loki hums and weaves a quick spell to reset her shoulder and numb the pain.  He then whips out a thin, tiny knife that cuts through the heavy rope like it’s tissue paper.  In no time flat, Jane is freed.  She’s pretty sure she loosened those knots a little for him.  No one can tell her she didn’t.

“Forgive me, darling, I was caught up in other matters.”

Her stomach reacts in an odd way to the term of endearment.  ‘Darling?’  Not even her father ever called her mother darling.  Did  _anyone_  anymore?

“Yeah, just one more card game, right?”

“I admit, I underestimated Midgard if a place such as this exists.”  They step out of the truck together- Jane doesn’t care to ask what Loki did with the drivers- and in the better lighting, she can see the shine of his teeth as he grins.  “I don’t think I’ve had this much fun since the time Thor was mistaken for a virgin sacrifice on Muspelheim.”

 “…Do I want to know?”

“Most likely not.”

Good enough for her.

“And I’m really not sure how cheating a loan shark out of four million dollars and bringing down half the Italian Mafia in one night constitutes fun,” Jane says.

“It is if you do it right.”

Loki gets tired of walking at this point, and he takes Jane by the arm and brings them back to the luxury suite he rented with the loan shark’s money.  The room is rich in white, gold, and white gold.  The bar is freshly stocked with any kind of liquor Jane can think of, along with a few she’s pretty sure aren’t native to this planet.  The Jacuzzi is as big as her room at the observatory, and was her body not screaming for bed, she might have taken an hour or five to enjoy a nice bubblebath before the reset.

She sinks onto the bed on top of the covers.  It’s like a cloud in heaven, so comfortable that Jane could close her eyes and go right to sleep.  Her mind is what keeps her awake, and all the myriad of thoughts stuffed into it that makes her want to explode.

“You can go back downstairs if you want,” she says.

She can’t see where he is in the room, but she hears him drop his coat somewhere to her left.

“Perhaps on our next visit,” he says.

Jane bites back a groan at the thought of doing this all again another day. 

“Why not?  The night is still young.”

“Why so eager to get rid of me?”  He appears to sit down.  “Makes me think you’re trying to abandon me here, in this place with your human vices and riches.”

“Loki, I don’t think I could be rid of you if I strapped myself to a rocket and flew to the moon.”

He chuckles.

“I wouldn’t recommend that.  You of all people should know that you wouldn’t survive the trip.”

“I’d just come back the next day, no harm done,” Jane says.  She yawns in the middle of it, but she’s sure Loki understands her all the same.  She rolls over, facing away from him.  “I’ve been thinking about that a lot, you know.”

His feet step off the floor as he puts them up.  “About what?”

“That,” Jane says.  She would like to leave it there, but then she elaborates.  “I’m pretty sure that nothing can stop today from repeating.  Even if one or both of us dies, we’ll be back to normal by the time the radio goes off.”

“What radio?”

Jane shakes her head.  “Sometimes I think about experimenting with that.  I’m still too scared to try it, though.  Why wouldn’t I be?  What I am I going to do, kill myself in a bunch of different ways just to see where I wake up next?  There’s always that chance that I could be wrong.”

“What makes you so sure you’re right?”

She sighs.  “Just a hunch.”

It’s probably better that she doesn’t tell him she’s basing this a lot on that montage of Bill Murray killing himself in creative and violent ways.

“But then I start to think that maybe someday, I  _will_  want to try it.”  She closes her hands around a decorative- pillow, squeezing it to her chest.  “I don’t know if it’ll be because I want to die or because I’ll just become desensitized to the whole idea of death… you know back at the casino when those thugs showed up, I stabbed the first one who tried to grab me in the hand with a pencil.”

Loki grins and nods his approval. 

“I saw.  That was very impressive.”

Jane’s eye twitches.

“I hate violence,” she mumbles.  “I mean, I guess if I was angry enough or my life was at risk, I’d throw a punch or a slap or something, but I never want to hurt anyone.  That guy screamed so loud when I stabbed him.  I think I may have severed a nerve or something, but I didn’t feel angry or even guilty about it.  The whole time, I was just annoyed.  Annoyed at  _you_.”

She’d like to glare at him right now, but she can’t make her head move, and that would just be passing the blame anyway.

“It barely registered in my mind that I’d done it, and that scares me.  I mean, what if I’d stabbed him somewhere else, like his neck.  He’d be dead right now.”

“That doesn’t matter.  He’ll just come back with next repetition.  You said it yourself.”

“But that’s the problem, Loki.” She gathers her strength and lifts herself off the bed.  She still can’t find him.  “I don’t want to start thinking like that.   _‘Oh, who cares what I do?  I could go rob a bank, I could kill someone, I could release a nuclear bomb on the house of the professor who tried to fail me in my freshman year of college, and it wouldn’t matter in the slightest because nobody will remember it the next day.’_ Do you not understand how toxic that kind of thinking is?  I could wind up turning into a sociopath or something.  Because it’s all true!  I  _could_  do any of those things and more, and there would be absolutely no repercussions because it’ll all be gone the very next day and no one will even remember it.”

Jane lets herself fall.  She no longer cares what Loki is doing or where she is, and she doesn’t care to hear his rebuttal about how stupid she’s being and how she should embrace the darkness in her, or whatever crazy supervillain rant he has in store for her.  If not that, she really doesn’t need him laughing at her.  Not when she already feels so bad about herself and her weak will at succumbing to violent urges that she’s only just coming to know.

She just knew she was going to regret this Vegas thing.

She lets herself rise and fall with the dipping at the side of her bed.  Loki’s head of black hair is in the corner of her eye unless Jane buries her face in the pillow.  That doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, and then Loki is rubbing her bare ankle, from the top of her calf to her heel.  It’s not the first time he’s done it, and like every other time, it relaxes her like the best masseuse in the world never could.

“If that is your greatest fear,” Loki says, softer than usual, “if you feel that you may one day reach a point where you wish to take someone’s life, no matter what the reason for it is, you can come to me, Jane Foster… and I will gladly kill them for you.”

Jane stretches her legs out all the way, giving him ample space to reach her thigh.  It feels more amazing than it should, but she’s given up caring about at least that much.  She lets him carry on to her other leg, which she must shift beneath his fingers as she turns her body so that now, finally, she is facing him.

“You know, in a really sick and twisted way,” she says, “that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She closes her eyes and relaxes to lets him work, and she returns the smile she knows he’s wearing.

**

_Day 88: J_ _ane Foster_

**_‘Come on Eileen,  
Oh I swear,’_ **

**_‘At this mo-_ ** **bzzzzz chk’**

Jane sits up in bed.  She is met with the sight of a clock radio crushed flat into a pancake, Loki’s fist rising from the wreckage to his chest.  He crosses his arms, looking quite proud of himself, as the clock radio fizzles and breathes its last.

“And  _that_ ,” Jane says, pointing at the mess, “is the nicest thing you’ve ever _done_  for me.”


	13. Days 103- 105

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to me.
> 
> Happy birthday to me.
> 
> Happy birthday dear me.
> 
> Happy birthday to me.
> 
> My gift for myself is that you guys get this chapter that I should have finished and posted about sixty thousand years ago.
> 
> I know, and I'm sorry, and I feel awful for keeping you guys waiting for this long. I want you all to know that I love each and every one of you who has ever reviewed, favorited, followed, left kudos, badgered me to continue, or otherwise showed your love for this story. I really want to see this one through to the end way more than anything else I've ever written. This chapter marks the halfway point between the start and the finish. It is mostly a comedy chapter because from here, things are going to get a whole lot more serious, and the next chapter is going to be a little different. You'll see what I mean when it is posted somewhere circa 2030.
> 
> *pelted by 9001 tomatoes*
> 
> I'm kidding! I'm kidding!

_Day 103_

_Jane Foster_

As far as Jane is concerned, the time for fooling around has come to an end. She just has to convince her unlikely accomplice of it.

It's proven difficult. The first time she tried was on Day 93 (she strives to keep an accurate timeline going). He had not taken her out, but he had decided that he wanted to show her a certain kind of Vanir magic that he'd learned from a former 'conquest' of his. It involved turning the floor of her room into a pool full of water that felt and tasted like seltzer, and which she was capable of breathing in thanks to that aforementioned Vanir magic. By the time Jane was once more able to think coherently, it was the next day and they were halfway to Paris for an early lunch.

The next time was Day 98, a quiet day for them. Neither was in the mood to go anywhere or go to bed, so they killed time by sitting in their basement lab reading books Loki translated into English and barely talking except for one to ask the other if they were hungry yet.

Jane had been thinking about it since the day before and now seemed liked as good a time as any to bring it up. The last time Loki said anything was half an hour ago, when he asked her if that book she was reading was as dull and poorly written as it looked. He was exactly where Jane had left him, between a set of cabinets with the door of its hinges and the working mini-fridge Jane hadn't bothered to stock. He was turned away from her, facing the cabinets. She knew how graceful he was. No one else would be able to stand with one foot on the floor and one foot on the wall for so long without teetering.

She ended up staring at his legs for a good long time, and had to physically smack herself to get back to business.

So she started talking. She didn't bother to ask if he was listening because he would just act like he wasn't to annoy her. If there was any plus to this never-ending May day, it was that she could slowly figure out all his tells and all the subtle nuances in his words and actions that probably only his family knew. How nice it was to be included in that little circle.

She talked about how slacking off wasn't going to help them get out of this faster, and she reminded him of their talk that night in Vegas. She left out his promise to her. He'd remember it fine, and she was honestly a little bothered by the warmth in her heart whenever she thought about it.

She talked for so long that she lost track of time. She started pacing around the room and around him, never looking him in the eye and taking his silence for comprehension right up until he sucked in a breath through his nose and let out a snore.

A _snore_.

He was _sleeping_!

Jane knew he wasn't faking. She stood on a foot stool and stared at him until her feet fell asleep. His eyes stayed close and his chest rose and fell in even motions. Once or twice he snored again, but after ten long minutes of waiting, he hadn't opened his eyes and laughed at her for falling for his prank.

Loki could fall asleep standing up.

Loki could fall asleep _period_.

She never would've guessed.

It's now Day 103. They've gone out for another night on the town, and this time, she's not exactly sure which town that is. That it's in the United States and someplace she hasn't been to before is all she's got. She thinks it might be Texas again. Everyone she's spoken to so far has had an accent, but she has yet to see a single cowboy hat, so she can't be sure. They're in a bookstore. Jane had grown tired after so many days of doing what he wanted that she demanded she choose their time-wasting location of the day. Loki had been amused, both by her wording and her request. Jane didn't ask what made him so amiable for once, she just directed them to the Barnes and Noble, the only thing Jane recognized within a hundred yards, and here they were hours later.

It's been a good learning experience for Jane. As much as she's learned about Loki's inner workings, she still has a long way to go before she truly understands him. Today has been the most enlightening day yet. She knows now that he's not nearly as dismissive of her planet's culture as he claims to be. Nobody who can namedrop not only Shakespeare and Byron, but also Oscar Wilde, Edith Wharton, and Harper Lee can say they've been paying no attention to the literary scene.

Of course, every single one of those writers was an amateurish hack in his view, but it's still better than Jane expected.

The most important thing Jane has learned about Loki in the past six hours is that she should never make a bet with him.

"And what's he then that says I play the villain? When this advice is free I give and honest. Probal to thinking and indeed the course to win the Moor again? For 'tis most easy."

More to the point, she should not bet him that he can't memorize an entire Shakespeare play in less than twenty minutes.

"The inclining Desdemona to subdue in any honest suit: she's framed as fruitful as the free elements. And then for her to win the Moor—were't to renounce his baptism, all seals and symbols of redeemed sin-"

And if she's going to make such a bet, she should insist that they wait to get back to the observatory first, rather than stay and draw in a crowd of fifty people.

"-His soul is so enfetter'd to her love, that she may make, unmake, do what she list, even as her appetite shall play the god with his weak function. How am I then a villain to counsel Cassio to this parallel course, directly to his good? Divinity of hell!"

"He's such a powerful performer," a middle aged woman in glasses and sweatpants sighs to her equally middle aged and sweatpants wearing friend. "I could watch him all day."

"Me, too," says the friend. She has her bottom lip caught between her teeth, and it's pretty obvious she's not thinking about Shakespeare. "Hell, I'd do more than just watch. Do you think he's single?"

"Oh boy, I hope so."

 _'You want him, you can have him,'_ Jane thinks.

She's sitting on the biggest and cushiest chair the store has to offer. Loki was kind enough to commandeer it for her before the start of the show. That skinny kid with the ancient Roman history text would just have to accept being regulated to one of the armless wooden chairs by the New Age section. At least Jane was able to whisper an apology before Loki drove him off.

Aside from the soccer moms, there's a yuppie looking couple in pantsuits, a balding old man, and a dark haired girl in glasses with a stack of graphic novels forgotten next to her chair. Other than that, Jane can't make out any features of the crowd. Most of them are packed into aisles or loitering around the escalators, and they pay her no mind as she flips through the pages of Othello and her sighs become increasingly loud.

The store employee who came over to break up the show is on the other cushy chair, watching Loki with a lovestruck expression, giggling at every romantic line that passes his lips. Jane doesn't think she's ever seen a thirty something man act so much like a teenage girl before. After him, the likelihood of anyone else trying to throw Loki out the door on his ass is slim to none. Jane wouldn't be surprised if he went as far as to hypnotize the other employees into ignoring him, or to be as enamored with his performance as the rest of the store.

That's another thing Jane has learned: Loki loves attention, and once he has it, he will do anything and everything to keep it. He's also a damn good actor, not that Jane is all that qualified to judge. Her one and only time on stage as a thespian had been in first grade, where she'd held the coveted role of Tree no. 2 in her classes' production of The Wizard of Oz. Meanwhile, Loki may as well have been William Shakespeare's inspiration for his plays. If she didn't already know about his blatant disregard for everything her people created (so he claimed), she wouldn't doubt it.

There's just no way he could be getting all of this from one measly skim through the text, annotated or otherwise.

She's always been kind of a sore loser.

At the end of the show—in which everybody either dies or loses everything as per the course—the standing ovation shakes the ground at their feet. Jane is the only one not to stand, but the lack of sufficiently tall people to hide her means that she can see Loki take his bow, drinking in their praise like it's the elixir of life. Conversely, he can see her. He can beam at her with twinkling eyes brimming with the worst kind of mirth. In this one sense, he's practically an open book, but Jane doesn't pat herself on the back for knowing it. She only knows what he's thinking now because he wants her to. It's even worse for her when he leaves the 'stage' and just _has_ to have her next to him when he's shaking hands and taking compliments.

"Son, you could have a real future in acting," says one man who is apparently a passing talent scout. Didn't it just figure that one of those would happen to be in the same Barnes and Noble at the same time? "I can hook you up with some big names in show business. If you call that number there on my card-"

"Thank you, good sir, for your patronage, but I'm afraid I have little interest in such pursuits. My performance today was a matter between myself and my lady here."

He squeezes her hand gently. Jane squeezes back as hard as she can, and she digs her nails in for good measure. He's not going to care and it's not going to hurt him, but goddammit she is _not_ his lady.

The soccer moms are next, and that's a headache Jane is beyond not in the mood to deal with. He enjoys their fawning for all of two seconds before he gets that look in his eye Jane knows to be his 'get away from me now or suffer the consequences' look. Neither of the women get the point, either because they're idiots or they're just too sexually repressed and in need of excitement to give a shit.

Well, the world didn't need Loki losing his temper because of some random admirers who don't understand boundaries.

Jane steps out of the crowd to Loki's side. With a giggle like a happy schoolgirl, she takes his hand.

"Come on, honey, we're going to be late for dinner," she says. For extra measure she gives the women a razor sharp smile that says quite plainly, 'back off.' Then she lets Loki lead her out.

"You are quite useful for eliminating unwanted admirers," he says when they're deep in the psychology section. "First at the wedding, now here. It's a shame we didn't meet years ago. There is many a social gathering I wish I could have avoided."

"Yeah, because if there's one thing you hate, it's drawing attention to yourself."

A trio of sweet old grannies meets them in the next aisle. They instantly recognize Loki and begin the tedious process of 'oohing' and ah-ing' over him and telling him how wonderful he is and all that jazz. Jane's heard it a dozen times. If he wants to take over the world so badly, clearly all he has to do was become a movie star. Then he'll win the war without a single life lost.

"You're certainly lucky to have a fine young man like this in your life."

It takes Jane a minute to realize that it's her being addressed. The granny in the middle—taller and portlier than the rest—looks at her with a mouth full of dentures. Her eyes are magnified by her horn rimmed bifocals, so that they look to take up half her face, and although the woman is harmless, Jane feels like she's being watched under a microscope.

"Oh, well, thank you—"Jane coughs, "—for your kind words, but I wouldn't really call myself lucky."

"Nonsense, child! In my younger days, I would have given an arm and a leg to find so refined a gentleman."

"Gentleman, right…"

It's sometime after seven in the evening and Jane is getting tired. She'd love to go home and get some sleep. The last time she felt truly rested was somewhere around day… God, she doesn't even know anymore. What's the point of keeping track again?

Sleep is not what awaits her when Loki transports them back to her room. Her bed awaits, as do several other spots around the magically expanded space, but Jane always knew what was coming if Loki made good on their bet. Now that he has, there's no point in resisting.

"Let's get this over with."

Her entire body below the neck tingles; magic and cold air coalescing together like she's been doused with ice water. Her simple blue jeans and flannel shirt dissolve into air. She knows she's naked for at least a second. If she asks, he'll just tell her that's how the spell works, and he won't elaborate. Explaining himself would mean he'd have one less method of fucking with her head. They couldn't have that, could they?

The next time she looks is when the magic is gone, but the chill remains. Her stomach is red like her cheeks and just as bare. Her new outfit is something like a cross between a bikini and a suit of armor, though the fabric is soft as silk and fits snug around her chest and waist. It pushes up her breasts, giving the illusion that they're larger than they are. The color is hard to pinpoint; it's always changing. If Jane moves one inch to the side, the sheer silver turns to stone blue. The only thing that never changes is how close it comes to being translucent. Jane fights the urge to cover what is already mostly hidden and forces herself to look up.

Loki appraises her from the bed, still in his human garb, sans the suit jacket and with several buttons undone at the neck. Jane lingers on the long stretch of white skin as her own becomes even more ruddy.

"That's fine," he says, crossing one leg over the other. "Just fine."

"I'm glad _you're_ enjoying this."

He wags a finger at her. "Tut tut, Jane, you do yourself no favors being a bad sport. You agreed to this wager."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I have to like it." She fists the miniscule garment. "Is this really what concubines on Muspelheim have to wear?"

"They did during the rule of the previous king," Loki says. He gets off the bed and walks to her. "I can't say how fashions have changed since his son took over, but seeing as he doesn't share his father's fondness for beautiful women-"

"Can we just get this over with? You can give me a history lesson later."

He comes up behind her, his chuckle reverberating through her stomach, which doesn't need to flip any faster, thank you.

"Are you displeased with my generosity?"

"If this is your idea of generosity, I'd hate to see your selfish side."

"All you have to say is that you don't like the outfit."

"And if I did, you'd let me take it off?"

"Of course I would. I don't like it either."

He walks with whistle on his lips that is no more deflecting than it is innocent. He's removed his cufflinks so that his sleeves are loose at the wrists. It's a minor detail that Jane notes in that tiny part of her brain not reserved for indignation.

"What do you mean _you don't like it_?" She clenches her fists. "Why else would you make me wear this stupid thing?"

He lounges on the same old seat, now modified to resemble a cushy office chair, complete with wheels.

"I may not be fond of Muspelheim fashions, Jane, but I do so love watching you squirm."

He takes both her hands in his, no doubt sensing how badly she wants to smack him. Though his grip on her is firm, his touch is gentle. His fingers run up the length of her arms to her bare shoulders, kneading her skin to relax tense muscles. Jane closes her eyes. She grits her teeth and halts her breath, not giving him the satisfaction of drawing a moan from her. She hates that he has this power over her, to soothe her anger when she wants nothing more than the freedom to rage.

Once again, she reminds herself how much she hates him on the whole. It's been far too long since she did that. At least two weeks.

"So can I take this stupid thing off now?" She pushes the metal gauntlets, annoyed but unsurprised when they refuse to budge.

"Not quite," he says, and Jane stops. There it is again. _That voice_. "If you don't mind, I'd like to do it myself."

He does, and he does it without magic. Beneath his touch, the gauntlets fall as if nothing ever held them to her wrists. The top and bottom go after, and then Loki hoists her up against his hard form. For his own clothes, he hasn't bothered with the manual approach. Jane is grateful for it. She doesn't think she could have handled waiting. If there's one thing Jane could give Loki, it's that he never strings her along when it comes to sex.

Except for that one time, but they're not going to acknowledge that.

They leave another temporary indent in the wall and then they bring it to the bed. Jane no longer questions it when her sheets become soft and silky on her skin. So long as the room stays the same, he can do whatever he wants with the furniture. She's thinking about asking him to remodel her vanity. Even if it only lasts a few hours, she'd like something a little nicer than a wooden box with a mirror nailed down. She could wonder when it was that she became so appearance conscious, but Loki has his face between her legs and he does such wonderful things with that tongue of his. Even when he moves, the only semblance of a thought her mind can conjure is _'Why'd you stop? Keep going. Keep going.'_

He settles his body over hers, holding her flush against him as he slowly enters her. Jane won't be able to keep her mouth shut, so she doesn't bother trying. She lets her moans rise above the bed's steady creaking, turning to screams as she reaches her climax. He buries his face in her shoulder so she can't see when he follows her. It's not the first time he's done it, and Jane knows from experience that she's going to come away with a checkerboard on her neck. That's just fine.

"I quite enjoyed that." He has her tucked under his arm with the covers drawn to their chests. "We should really do it again sometime."

"Yeah, it's not like we have particularly active sex lives, you and I," says Jane.

"I mean our day trip, of course." He shifts around, drawing her closer still. "It was quite a bit more stimulating than I expected. When you suggested one of your houses of inferior knowledge, I had assumed my time would be wasted, but it seems there are even more redeemable qualities to Midgardians than I thought."

"That's a first," Jane mutters. That said qualities have nothing to do with human character and everything to do with Loki being a prima donna will go unmentioned.

"I'm happy to see that those few Midgardians with praiseworthy accomplishments are still well remembered after their deaths."

"If you're talking about Shakespeare, you should know that most of the people in that room didn't have a clue what you were talking about. Shakespearean English is a language all its own."

"I am aware," he says. "One does not need to understand greatness to recognize it."

"Oh, we're getting philosophical now."

He pulls away, leaving her free but oddly chilly without his presence. He props himself up on his side, the blankets falling low on his hips. It's nothing Jane hasn't seen up close and personal a hundred times before, yet her eyes are still drawn downward.

"We could talk about something else if you'd prefer." He tucks a bit of hair behind her ear. "How about those fine women you sat with during my performance?"

"I hope you're talking about the grannies." Jane thinks back to the store goers, trying to pinpoint where the old ladies had been in approximation to her. She'd been in the middle of the room and she'd heard voices behind her a few times. Some of them sounded vaguely geriatric.

"Grannies? I know not what that is," he says. "Unless that is a term for midlife sexual dissatisfaction that I am not familiar with."

Jane covers a giggle with a cough and her hand. She feels like she should be offended as a fellow woman on the behalf of the soccer moms, but severe Loki exposure and time loop related stress are a horrible combination. She came to terms with that back during their semi-disastrous Vegas getaway, and only continues to find proof of it as the cycles continue and metaphorical days go by. Jane will hold Loki to the promise he made her, both for practical purposes and because it's the first and so far only time they've found some common ground outside of the bedroom. When it comes to Loki, she'll take what she can get. He's probably right about those soccer moms anyway.

"They were totally into you," she says, and it comes out far more bitter than she intended.

He grimaces. " _Into_ me? I can assure you they were not. I don't know how that would work as anatomical differences indicate that I would be the one into them."

This time, Jane couldn't stop herself if she sewed her lips shut and locked herself in an iron box. Her laughter shakes the bed almost as much as their last romp. She finds herself propelled back into Loki, and he drapes an arm over her side that stops low over her ass.

"Oh my god," she says. "I can't believe you just said that!"

"The point remains. Why, even in the times I brought a man to my bed, I was always the one into them."

He's going to kill her if he keeps this up. Maybe that's his intention. They still have yet to test her theory that death would serve them just as well as it did Bill Murray. A case of fatal hilarity doesn't sound bad compared to a toaster in the bathtub or an exploding car.

"Oh- Okay, you are awful." She gasps out the words as she rubs her aching stomach.

"Awful, am I? You seemed to find me quite magnificent just a short time ago."

"More like your _hands_ are magnificent," she says. "The rest of you, I can do without."

"Even my tongue?"

"Especially your tongue."

"Another statement I doubt you would have made moments ago."

Jane considers that.

"Okay, I take it back. I'll leave your tongue. It's your voice box I'll let go of."

"But I thought you liked the sound of my voice."

He hadn't said it in _that voice_ , but the truth of his statement rings clear. Even when it isn't _that voice_ and Jane wants nothing more than to replace those damn Reese's with super glue... he's a pretty good conversationalist when he's taking things seriously.

"You're just trying to trick me into saying that I like you," she says. She pulls herself up and rests her head in her hands.

"For once, I must disagree."

"Is that right?"

"Yes." He mimics her actions, his elbow knocking into hers. "If you like me, it would be due to my charming personality and impeccable character traits."

It's hard to tell if that was a joke or not. Logically, Jane knows it should be. The question is whether or not Loki has enough self-awareness to know it himself. At least, that's what the question should be, and what Jane will go on believing it is. She finds it easier to live in denial than to face the thought that Loki has positive attributes. Or that they extend outside of the bedroom. Or that at some point, when she wasn't looking, they might have become something like friends. The thought alone should be revolting after all that he's done.

 _Should_ be.

"So what about me?" she asks.

She gives a little gasp like a hiccup as one hand leaves the other and delves up between her legs, stroking her inner thigh.

"Hmmm…" he says, which, if Jane had to guess, means something along the lines of 'this conversation bores me. Let's get back to the action.' Jane would agree, but she needs an answer first.

"What do you like about me?"

The shift in the air is instantaneous, and yet Jane doesn't start to worry until there's a patch of cold where his body used to be, and her mattress has deflated back into a lumpy cot. The covers are twisted around her ankles thanks to how violently he threw them off. She fights with them for a time, getting everything but her face uncovered in her scramble for purchase. When she does get free, Loki is across the room, and he has his pants on. He's left his top half bare, either because he hasn't finished dressing or to give her something to stare at while he broods in the corner.

Broods over what, she cannot say. It's not like she's asked him something invasive or soul-bearing.

 _'But that's just it,'_ she thinks, dread building in her stomach, _'maybe you have.'_

Jane shrinks away from his stare, even though there's nothing malicious about it. Common sense and basic human logic tells her that being alone with an irate criminal is the last thing she wants to do. She should start running now. That she doesn't can be chalked up to familiarity, to the bond of understanding and camaraderie that has slowly manifested itself between them, unacknowledged until now. This thing has her believing she can trust him, that he's her _friend_ , if he remembers what it means to be one.

"Loki?"

She raises a hand. To reach out to him? To push him? She isn't sure.

"Please don't," he says, and she pulls away, rubbing her arm like he's slapped it. "I know exactly what you're trying to do."

"I'm trying to figure out what it is we have here."

"We have nothing." He spits, and he might as well be spitting literally for how it feels to Jane. "This- this is a matter of convenience only. If you think I would ever seek out a plain faced human girl like you under normal circumstances, then you are as stupid as I thought."

And then he's gone. It's just like the last time they fought, except this time she gets to watch him blink out of existence. It happens without all the lights and sounds, or the bells and whistles. He is gone faster than she can blink, and he leaves all the changes to her room. He's even restored the comfortable mattress. Jane sits down on it, the bedsheet loose and exposing her front, not that there's anyone around to see it.

It takes about an hour—or Jane thinks it does; she's not facing the clock—but the hurt and the confusion that have swirled around inside of her since Loki's departure has evaporated. She's let his parting words spin around in her head, repeating at different speeds and volumes, with emphasis on different words, until her skull is ready to crack. It gets her nowhere. If the scientist in her had any control, it would say that progress has been made between them. Any time spent working on a problem brought you that much closer to a solution, even if at first it seems like you're getting nowhere. If Jane was in her right mind, she wouldn't even be thinking about this. She'd be downstairs in the basement lab where she belonged, working on her next theory for breaking the time loop. She'd be working until the sun went down and 5 am was upon her. She'd be fueling herself with coffee and a couple bites of a jelly donut. Everything she used to have Darcy around to stop her from doing, she'd be doing.

But she's not.

She's not doing any of that.

What she's doing is walking around the room, from the bed to the closet with the rickety door. She's listening to Loki tell dirty jokes and then throw inexplicable fits in an alternating sequence. She's choosing the most trivial thing he said to throw most of her anger at. It's somehow become just as important to her as it would be to so many other women.

_'If you think I would ever seek out a plain-faced girl like you…'_

Plain.

He called her _plain._

He. Called. Her. Plain.

And it's _so stupid_ that out of everything he's ever done, _this_ is what eats away at her. This shouldn't mean _anything_ to her. It's not even the first time a man hasn't found her attractive. The only time it's ever mattered before was when the boy she asked to the junior prom told her he didn't date flat chested girls. Even then she only resorted to stuffing once, and it was alone in her room.

She's just not the kind of person who's supposed to hear this and be offended, no matter who says it. It should matter even less with Loki. Since when does his opinion on her looks mean a thing to her?

But aye there's the rub. Every time Jane is about to stop and convince herself to forget it and stop wasting valuable time that could be spent productively instead of moping around like a moody teen, she walks by that dinky vanity with its dinkier mirror and catches a glimpse of herself. She sees a sixteen year old with wads of toilet paper in her bra, and then she sees herself now, and then she hears him again.

_'If you think I would ever seek out a plain-faced girl like you-'_

"Fuck you!" she shouts at the air.

She storms over to the closet. She rips out her travel bag, the big blue one in the back that she hasn't opened since she got here. One of the last tasks Darcy performed as her intern was to pack this thing. She did it all on her own without Jane's input, and she wouldn't be surprised if Darcy only did it for one more chance to mess with Jane. Absolutely nothing in this bag was of any use out here, just random things from the back of Jane's dresser that she wore only once or not at all. The summer attire in particular is a stand out.

"You're telling me that you're going to go live on an island and you're _not_ gonna take a swim? Why even bother?" Darcy had said. This after learning that the island was right below the North Pole.

But where Jane once cringed at the thought of what Darcy put in here, now she thanked the heavens for.

She unzips the bag and lifts the folded cloth on top for inspection. She does the same with everything else, sorting them into piles of useful and not useful. Loki most likely will not come back until tomorrow. Plenty of time to prepare herself.

This is going to be the stupidest thing Jane will ever do in her life, but man is she excited.

Loki Laufeyson is in for it.

**

_Day 104_

_Loki Laufeyson_

Loki is about to do something he hasn't done in years.

It took time for him to reach this point. First, he returned to the underground hovel he dug for himself and tried not to break anything. The last time was bad enough without a repeat performance. He's not Thor, for Valhalla's sake. He knows better than to use his fists to solve his problems.

He ignored all the men under his control as they wandered down narrow walkways without purpose. None of them saw him enter, his magic cloaking him from sight. They and the tesseract were the last things he wanted to deal with. He caught a glimpse of its eerie blue glow as Selvig tinkered with it. It was stable for now, yet the unnatural power pressed into his chest in oppressive ways it never had before. Or perhaps it had and he'd been too consumed by hunger for destruction to note the pain.

He found himself in the tunnels, the very same ones from the fifth cycle; his conversation with the Other. Every iteration of this blasted day, he feels the sting of the gruesome creature attempting to pull him back to his world, and every time, Loki resists. He know very well that for all his hubris, the Other is nothing without Thanos at his back, and on his own, he can be swatted away like the pest he is. He never comes back after the first attempt, but Loki doesn't take that for surrender by any means. If today became tomorrow as it should, he had no doubt that he'd wake up in that wasteland of death and nothingness, back for another round under the titan's power. This time, he wasn't likely to come out a scout for more tributes to his Lady Death. No, he'd be her next 'gift'. All wrapped up nice with a bow on top.

His thoughts from there strayed little from the tiny scientist half a world away. She would be cursing him to Helheim and back by now for abandoning her again. Not that it's important to him what Jane Foster thinks (really, it's not), but he couldn't stop seeing her in that cramped excuse for a room, waiting in vain for him to return, hating him a little more each time she looked over her shoulder and he wasn't there. If he disappointed her enough times, she might just decide he wasn't worth the effort of missing.

She wouldn't be the first.

So he makes himself angry with her, as if she's the one to blame. He creates in his head a scene where he goes back to her hovel. He appears with as little fanfare as he left her with, catching her by surprise. If she tries to speak, he'll cut her off. He'll remind her once more how worthless and inferior she is, by the simple fact of her species and the more complex matter of her thick-headed optimism. That she could even think to suggest that, within the shallow depths of his dead yet still beating heart, there could be anything that even remotely resembled fondness for her was…

Was...

Well, it's sentimental nonsense for sure, something he has no business involving himself in. It belongs with those who can afford to open themselves up to others, those who have had the good fortune in life to be loved. The kind of person Loki once blindly hoped he could be. Such a sweet, ignorant boy he was.

But it doesn't matter because of course he can feel nothing for Jane Foster, or anyone else. Beyond carnal pleasures, she is nothing to him. _Can_ be nothing to him. However much she may continue to intrigue him, if he gets too close, he risks losing resolve.

 _'It's a little late for that,'_ says a voice in his head, a softer version of his own that mocks openly and not behind a veil.

For a while, he tries to drown it out with all the cutting words and phrases his silver tongue would unleash on Jane Foster, all of which he wants so desperately to believe she deserves. After all the misdirected rage and empty threats he will never speak aloud, he is left with a crippling sense of truth, the kind he would rather die than acknowledge. The kind that brings him back to Phil Coulson's supposed final words.

_'You lack conviction.'_

No, he doesn't. Not about this. Unfortunately, he is very secure in what he has to do about this.

That's why he's standing on the beach with water at his feet, staring up at Jane's observatory home, about to do something he hasn't done in a hundred years, and hasn't done _sincerely_ in twice that long.

Today, Loki Laufeyson is going to apologize.

It's not going to be easy for him. It's not going to be fun for him. He might come out of it hating Jane for putting him in this position in the first place.

 _'No, you won't,'_ says the voice again.

By the time he's outside Jane Foster's door, there are Midgardians scattered everywhere, including those two Jane consorts with when he's not around, looking for the source of the cold spot that brushes against their arm or their back. He thinks dimly that he could have just appeared in her room and saved himself the trouble of walking. If he has any excuse, it's that now he's had time to think about what he will say, how he will to say it, and what he will do if she doesn't forgive him.

It hasn't done him any good.

**

_Jane Foster_

She hears him open the door. She's in bed facing the wall, and he must think at first that she's asleep. It's a while before his shadow falls over her, and even longer before he speaks. When he finally does, Jane's expression is passive. Inside, her lips curl into a smirk that would make the God of Mischief proud.

It's show time.

**

_Loki Laufeyson_

At first, when he bypasses the door and finds Jane in bed, he thinks maybe he should wait until tomorrow.

It's not that he's fooled into believing she's asleep (and if that's her game then she needs to learn to control her breathing), it has more to do with the very sight of her, here in corporal form with all barriers between them gone, there is nothing to shield him from the reality of the situation.

He's going to apologize.

He's going to bare his soul (if only just) and throw himself before her mercy and judgement.

If Thor was here to see him, he would laugh. Look here now at the great Silvertongued prince, who could talk circles around kings and commonfolk alike, cowed by a mortal woman. He would be a laughingstock around the taverns. Perhaps there are more benefits to his exile than he thought.

As Jane's breath hitches—a sure sign that she is aware of his presence and trying to hide it—Loki stands over her bed. He thinks about removing the covers from her shoulders, and then she does it for him, turning over abruptly, so the thin blanket falls to her waist.

Loki's throat closes.

"Good morning," Jane says. She sits up, allowing the sheet to fall further. It pools at her legs, exposing a pale flat her stomach that the flimsy cloth over her chest does absolutely nothing to hide.

"Ah…"

It should go without saying this is not the most dignified response Loki has ever had. That he knows Jane Foster's body better than she does at this point, and has known countless other women just as well, is of no consequence. This is the first time he's ever seen Jane in such a state without lust clouding her eyes. Looking at her now, he'd say she's rather bored, which doesn't explain why her current choice of wardrobe consists of a flimsy piece of stringy cloth that hides her breasts (and is covered in what appears to be a hundred shooting stars) and another tiny blueish cloth that protects her lower half. He's reminded of yesterday's misadventure with the Muspelheim concubine costume. This… whatever this is, it's a watered down parody of what the former king demanded of lovers.

He knows right away which one he prefers.

"What's the matter?" Jane asks, resting her back against the wall. "Cat got your tongue?"

Whatever a cat would do with a tongue and how the feline is expected to remove it from his mouth goes unexplained. At his extended moment of silence, Jane feigns a yawn and stretches her arms in the air. The act of it pushes out her chest, and now Loki notices just how tight that star covered garment is. It pulls her breasts together, giving her a fuller look than she was capable of on her own. The bottoms dip low beneath her belly button, just wide enough to shield her core. The effect is that Loki's fingers clench and itch to take her and…

"Well, since you're here, we might as well do something productive." Jane rolls herself out of bed and out of reach. Loki's arm, extended a fraction of an inch, hovers in place as if afflicted by dark magic. He wants to speak. To ask her what, he cannot say, and the aching kinks in his jaw alert him to how long he's left it hanging open.

"I… I'm sorry, I don't feel quite myself."

"We all have those days," she says. She shrugs her bare shoulders and turns away from him. He watches her back, and discovers that the bottom garment is just as tight as the top and no less revealing.

He suddenly feels like laughing.

 _'Oh, my dear little Jane Foster,'_ he thinks. _'Do you really think I don't know your game? You are a clever woman, but subtlety is an art that eludes you. You have been clear as day since I first walked in, and if you think you're going to best me with this little display, you are sorely mistaken.'_

He tells himself this, and then Jane happens to drop the pen she's been playing with and bends to pick it up.

She will not win this.

She won't.

"What do you mean 'productive'?" he asks, and he makes sure to word it like an afterthought so she doesn't think he really gives a damn.

Again she shrugs. "Means what it sounds like. We haven't gotten much done, and we can't just go on trips all the time when we have bigger fish to fry."

She gathers up papers and pens that have been scattered around the room and organizes them into a messy pile. He doesn't know what any of those are, and she seems to be picking things at random, just for the sake of busying her hands.

And then he finds himself thinking of all the other things Jane Foster can do with her hands, and damn it all and damn her, too. _She will not win this!_

"I… see you are still adamant that there is something we can do," he says, fingering the lining of his coat that is suddenly too warm and heavy on him.

"I see you're still being a big stick in the mud."

Loki frowns. As he spends more time with Jane, he comes to understand Midgardian idioms, but he so wishes she would speak plainly at a time like this.

She walks to her closet and bends to pick up something off the floor. Her backside is in the air; that pathetic scrap posing as clothing covers absolutely nothing. The skin of her behind is smooth and creamy and slightly paler than the rest of her. Loki's eye twitches. She starts rummaging through boxes he has never seen before. He'd like to accuse her of pretending just so her backside will wiggle back and forth with her movements. He would like to except… her backside is wiggling back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

"Hmm… I know I put it here somewhere…"

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

"I'll just have to keep looking until I find it. That okay with you?"

Back and forth.

"Loki?"

Back and forth.

"You all right?"

Back and-

"I will return momentarily," Loki said tightly. "I must… take care of something."

He reappears next to some kind of eatery. Captain Rogers is peering down an alley as if he is foolish enough to believe Loki or anyone else would be hiding in so obvious a spot. Were Loki not in the state that he was, he would enjoy mocking the so-called 'super' soldier's naivety. His appearance earns gasps and pointing from the Midgardians who didn't expect a man to appear out of nowhere and attack a national hero in broad daylight. Rogers' reaction time is commendable. He throws the shield, which Loki easily deflects. Snarling, he lunges for Rogers, dragging him by the neck into the darkness.

He takes his time releasing all the tension through his fists as they collide with Roger's face. His opponent is helpless after the second punch knocks him out, but Loki isn't done yet. He swings again and again, beating Rogers bloody until he is unrecognizable. He drops him, boneless, to the ground. Rogers is still breathing and probably won't die, not that it matters.

Loki leaves him to be found or to be chewed upon by stray cats until the next cycle. He returns to Jane with the sweat gone from his brow, and finds that she has left the closet.

But he cannot breathe easy, because now she's stretched out on the bed, her arms over her head and her hair swept back like in his fantasies. She does a little bend so that her chest juts out.

"I got bored and decided to take a break," she says. Her eyes are heavily lidded. "Care to join me?"

Barton is on the roof of a skyscraper, and Loki makes quick work of him. His bow is in pieces at his feet, his arrows chucked over the side of the building with a great deal more force than was technically needed. Barton is not as durable as Rogers, but he provides decent relief as Loki breaks all of his ribs and turns his face into a purple splotch.

"You were a terrible servant anyway," he rasps as he stalks away from Barton's barely conscious form. "You're tiny. I can't imagine what Romanov sees in you."

Jane is sitting up in bed, a book in her hand. She still has that… thing on, but at least she's not being deliberately tempting anymore. This right here is normal Jane. He can handle this.

"Back already?" she asks, not looking up. "Thought I'd be waiting forever."

He's breathing too hard to speak, so he reaches for a seat. It comes to him on command. Jane drops the book just as he sits and waves a hand in her face.

"Man, it is boiling in here," she says. Loki feels no heat and would say so, but now she's smirking at him. "I think I need to take this off."

She pulls down the tiny straps of her top and then reaches around back for the clasp. She winks as she snaps it.

Loki has to shoot Stark out of the air, but the despicable bastard recovers fast enough to avoid a crash landing. He hits the ground on his knee and stands up, hand raised to blast Loki. He lowers it again after a minute and lifts up his face plate. He stares openly at Loki's groin, letting out a low whistle.

"Nice," he says, "but you're gonna have to take me to dinner first."

Loki takes extra pleasure in this one.

He throws a crushed piece of armor at Stark's head before departing. It hits him dead on between the eyes, and now Stark has another wound to bleed from.

He nearly screams upon returning. Jane is fully naked, on her side with one hand tracing the soft curve of her hip. The other props up her hand, and she has one finger caught delicately between her teeth.

"Welcome back," she says, running her tongue slowly over her lips. "Miss me?"

He grabs her. She's light as a feather and he can throw her against the wall without the slightest effort. Her back hits the brick, and she makes the most delightful sound of shock. His teeth attach to her neck, sucking at the pulse point. His fingers trail deftly down to her core, and he shows her no mercy as he inserts two fingers at once. Her answering moan is shameless, as is the triumphant grin she gives him when their eyes meet.

"I thought… I was just… a plain faced girl." She digs her nails into his back. He doesn't remember removing his clothes, but he feels them pierce his bare skin just the way he likes it. "Not something to get this worked up over."

"You are a temptress," he growls. "A wanton little witch. Would that I could wreck you."

"You're doing a good job of it now." He cuts her off with a punishing kiss as he lifts her higher, enough that his erection presses into her folds. "Think we should take this to the bed?"

"A fair point," Loki says. He runs his tongue over the bruise on her neck. "Allow me to counter it."

He surges forward, as far inside of her as he can manage, and he thinks it fair to say that Jane sees his logic is undeniable.

The sun is nearly gone when they collapse on the bed. The room is in a state of chaos. Her vanity is split in half, her closet door off its hinges. There are scuff marks on every wall and an overturned chair with two legs snapped off. Jane nestles into his chest. He can count all the marks he's left on her from here. Idly, he rubs the marks that pepper his own neck and collar. Some of them are raised and sting when he touches them. It reminds him that today was real. A pity that he only has a few short hours left to enjoy it.

"I gotta admit," Jane says, "forgetting how embarrassing it started out being, this was the most fun I've had in ages."

Loki feels something soft between his fingers and realizes that it's her hair.

"I'm glad to have entertained you."

"Don't be like that." She sits up on her elbows. "I think I understand why you like messing with people so much."

"It's great fun, is it not?"

"Depends on the target."

He moves his hand. It's out of pure spite, as is rolling away from her, and he comes to regret both. This position is much more uncomfortable than the first.

She moves behind him. Her body heat wraps around him like a blanket as her bare breasts tickle his back. "So am I still just a boring distraction to you?"

He can see her from the corner of his eye. Her breath is gentle and cool on his ear. The urge to reach for her is powerful, but he weathers through it. He clutches the pillowcase instead.

"You…" he closes his eyes. His teeth clench. "You are… a truly fascinating woman."

She lets her fingers run down his arm with the lightest touch. Though their bodies have not yet cooled, he wouldn't be surprised if he finds her beneath him once again soon. He worries not about exhausting her. She's proven time and time again that she can take whatever he gives. She is in so many ways the best person he could have been trapped with.

"You are unlike anyone I have ever met before." He slides gracefully to take her in his arms. One thigh presses her legs down, keeping her in place as if escape was ever a thought in her head. "That a mortal like you could be so bold, so tenacious in the face of insurmountable odds. I have said that it was foolish, and I meant it… but even so, there is something... admirable about it."

He doesn't like the way she's staring at him, so he sits up and out of the way of her beam. To meet her gaze now would be an even greater victory over him than the one she has already achieved. He's just petty enough that he would rather speak to the window than allow it. Without proper light, her reflection is little more than a silhouette on the wall. The shapeless form of her stands, unashamed of her nudity. It's quite a change from their first few trysts, when she refused to get up without a bedsheet draped around her like a ballroom gown.

She gets her usual sleeping attire out from under the bed. She dresses silently. Loki watches the waves crash on the beach as the lights inside the observatory go off one by one. Most of Jane's colleagues will be in bed by now, or else holed up in their corners to spend another night on frivolous research. That is what he imagines at least. He's never bothered to find out what schedules they are eternally set to.

Jane's mattress squeaks. She's dressed and lounging with the sheets balled up in the corner. Loki conjures some loose breeches and sits beside her. He can't see most of his bite marks this way, but her hair remains ruffled, and for that alone he can't look away.

"So what do you want to do tomorrow?" she asks.

**

_Day 105_

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility."

Loki stalks along the bookshelves, fixing his audience with a stare that rivets them as completely as the words do. Jane is right that more than half of them have no idea what he's saying. He doubts even Jane does, as his double stands invisible behind Jane to watch her follow along with the book she pulled off the shelf. He likes this play much more than the last one. This Henry V sounds like an interesting fellow. Maybe when he's finished reading this play, he'll look into another. That is, if Jane is willing to go for a third round.

Of course he could have easily memorized the words as he'd claimed, but after her little game in the last cycle, this way was by far the more fun. Her growing frustration as he flies through the story of this tragic king, reciting one more rousing speech to this crowd of easily pleased Midgardians, is something he will always cherish, however long he remains in her company and beyond.

"Dishonour not your mothers; now attest that those whom you call'd fathers did beget you-"

"-Be copy now to men of grosser blood, and teach them how to war!"

Loki purses his lips, as he has all the other times another voice rings out over his own, stopping him in mid-sentence and coming dangerously close to tripping him up. The interruption comes from a decrepit old man in a wheelchair, shriveled up and half-dead. When he isn't shouting out dialogue, he is still as a statue, and one could easily mistake him for a lifeless doll. He turns to the elderly woman beside him, grinning a toothless grin and brings one bony finger to her cheek.

"Remember when I did that whole damn speech in fronta twenty thousand, Rosie? I really knocked 'em dead that night."

The woman nods with tears in her eyes, and she takes his vein covered hand in hers, stroking his fingers with a love that reminds Loki of another couple he once knew. It is the only thing that keeps him from sealing the stupid fellow's mouth shut. That, and Jane was unlikely to approve.

He takes a bow as he finishes. No one claps louder than his new friend, who saw fit to interject five more times before the end of the play. He is thankfully not one of the many to shake Loki's hand or try to offer him business cards for acting agencies, nor does he sidle up to him with thinly veiled propositioning as more than a few women do. Loki shakes them all off to land at Jane's side. He plucks the book from her grasp before she can throw it. Her bottled water is unopened, so Loki helps himself to a drink and gets nothing in return but a grumble.

"I did tell you not to bet against me twice, Jane," he says. "Shame on you for not heeding my warning."

"I am not putting on any more concubine outfits." Jane shoves him aside, marching towards a section labeled 'self-help'. "I absolutely refuse."

"That's a shame. The ones from Vanaheim are so much nicer than the Muselpheim ones. Far more tasteful. I think you'd look splendid."

"Eat me."

"Now now, my dear, I've given them enough of a show, don't you agree?"

She might be too far away to hear him over the noise. Loki thinks this more than makes up for his defeat last night. He'll fall asleep satisfied, as will Jane once she gets over her loss and returns to him, which she will. She always does.

He likes to think it's not only because she has no choice.

"Hey, great performance there, man."

A young lad approaches him from behind, accompanied by a girl who can't be more than a year his junior. Both of them wear happy expressions, and Loki is relieved to find that neither of them want to offer him a 'BJ' like those other teenage girls had tried to do. At least, he hopes they don't.

"Thank you," he says curtly.

"It was really awesome," says the girl. "Our grandpa was way into it."

That catches his attention. He can still see the old man in the wheelchair right where he left him, the old woman tending to him. On her lips are words of love spoken so many times that it becomes meaningless, and yet she never seems to stop.

"Would this grandfather of yours be the one who saw fit to make it a two man show?"

The girl bites her lip. "Yeah, we're sorry about that. Grandpa doesn't always know what he's doing. It's because of the Alzheimer's. The doctors all say he's in the late stages, so most of the time he doesn't even know who we are, let alone where he is. In fact, today is the most coherent he's been in over a year."

"He used to be a stage actor," says the boy. "He was a pretty big deal on Broadway, and he did a lot of Shakespeare. I guess listening to you jogged his memory. It's like we have him back again."

Loki furrows his brow. This is actually not much better than those girls. At least with them, he knew how to respond.

"I did not do it for your grandfather."

"We know," says the girl, "but it still means a lot to us. He's not going to make it much longer, but it's good to know that even at the end, he was still in there somewhere. We're just really grateful to you, sir."

They nod over his shoulder. The old woman has left her husband in the care of a nurse and she comes to Loki on unsteady feet. The tears he had seen before now stream down her wrinkling face uninhibited. Her eyes are bright and clear behind thick lenses. He thinks he can see the great beauty she was in her youth. Without warning, she falls into him, her arms around him weak, but unyielding as she cried into his shirt.

"Thank you," she sobs, "thank you. You're an angel."

"Ah…" Loki's hand on her shoulder, that he would have used to rip her from him a second ago, remains stationary as the woman's grandchildren coax her back with more heartfelt thank yous and goodbyes than Loki knows what to do with.

He watches them return to their grandfather. He hasn't stopped talking yet, and Loki hears words of poetry from him as he kisses the old woman's hand. Her tears have not stopped flowing. He knows not when they will. He waits to see if the old man will regress back to his catatonic state. He has asked his wife to allow a comparison to 'a summer's day' when Jane waves a hand in his face.

"Loki? You in there? Hello?"

Loki catches it, holding on gently. Her hand is so small that he could wrap his fingers around it twice.

"What's gotten into you?" she asks.

"I…" Loki shakes his head. There's a burning in his chest that he can't explain, but isn't altogether unpleasant. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Let us go. I require sustenance. We should eat."

They take the elevator to the bottom floor. The doors are so sluggish that Loki could have transported them to the restaurant, back to the observatory, and back here in the time that it takes them to close. At the very last second, he finds the old man again, who turns his head like he knows he's being watched and smiles.

Loki almost smiles back.


	14. Interlude: Day ???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, apologies for the long wait and the relatively short chapter. This is an extremely important interlude where we learn more about the person behind the time loop. By the end of the story, it will be fully explained why this is happening, and as you read, some of you will probably figure out who the culprit is.
> 
> The really important thing is that you should have read the side story, A Day in the Life before you read this. If you have and you don't remember what happened, or if you just don't feel like going to check it out, here's a recap:
> 
> \- A Day in the Life is about what the Avengers are doing on days when Loki doesn't attack New York. Obviously, they're all very confused and unsure if Loki disappeared or if he's going to pop up and yell 'boo!' at some point.
> 
> \- At the very end of the story, Tony gets an email from someone called 'Mali.' This email has some highly upsetting contents and occurs right before the time loop resets. It then becomes clear that this happens every day, and each day the email has a new number on it coinciding with the number of loops. In this chapter, you will find out why.
> 
> So go now, all of you! Read forth!

There is a place that exists only within itself. A place where time, at its very essence, was born millennia ago. Someday, it will be the place where time dies. In the endless twists and turns of the universe, this place is the center of the knot. It is the lynchpin that keeps the strings together. It is a place one could never reach unless invited, either by rocket or bifrost. It is a place some don't believe exists at all, because they live under the mistaken impression that if something is real, they would see it.

It is the place where a woman, small in stature and lithe in build with a healthy yellow glow to her flawless skin, watches a robed man weave the threads of time into a breathtaking tapestry. He's been hard at work since she got here, conducting the streams into an eternal, looping dance around two people who have no idea their significance. The entire universe all the way to its farthest corners center around them now. If anyone had power over the Master of Time, he would've been tried and executed long ago. Somewhere it must be treason to do what he's done. Time hasn't moved for one hundred and six days; the equivalent of three and a half months. There is a saying from earth that comes to mind. People do crazy things for those whom they love. It's something Mali always thinks about when she's in Chronos's presence.

She's tried to understand, but it doesn't come easy. She is of a race that doesn't experience amorous affection the way Earthlings or Aesir do. Love is reserved for one's companions and children. A mate is merely a means of procreation. Once you decide you are ready for offspring, you submit your application with the appropriate offices, and if you're approved, a partner is assigned to you. While it isn't uncommon for partners to raise children as a unit, marriage is a foreign concept. As soon as the children are grown, they go their separate ways, their task complete.

If she went home now and told her people of her Master and Mistress's bold romantic displays, they think she was playing a joke on them. If she told them of the way they touched each other at night in the most intimate of places, not to procreate, but just for the sake of it, they'd faint from shock. Her mother would insist that she quit and come home, not that she doesn't already do that every time they converse.

The Master stands alone tonight. His lady will be in the tower, watching over her subjects. She rarely leaves anymore. No doubt she's been keeping busy. Whenever the Master is not here to guide the time flow, he is up there with her. Mali thinks he would stay forever if he could. If only he didn't have so much responsibility.

This room is not a room, though it dwells in the heart of a palace. It has a door, but no walls; a floor, but no ceiling. To stand at the threshold is to occupy a magnificent corridor made up of fine white marble and alabaster, beautiful but commonplace. To walk inside is to enter a world that both is and isn't reality. Here is where Chronos weaves the threads of life. Every living creature is a string with a beginning and an end. Some reach the heavens and keep going; others are no longer than her finger.

Two threads fly out into the center as the monochrome silver of the masses curve at his command. There is an hourglass beside him. The sand is about to run out. As the grains trickle, he brings all the threads of planet earth together, twists them until they form a rope. He repeats the process with all the life outside of earth, in the farthest reaches of the universe. One might think such a task would take forever, but in this room that isn't a room, forever and a microsecond are one and the same. They become one as the sand reaches the bottom, and he brings both arms up to join the ends together.

The rope spins as trillions of actions play out in reverse. A man walks backwards out of a room; a bullet flies into the barrel of a gun; a child on the ground is pulled onto their feet. The suns and moons fly in a race with no winner. They stop in different places and continue their solitary path until the time to flip the hourglass returns.

Time is many things, infinite, unstoppable, unchanging, undying. She has learned these last one hundred cycles that it is something else, too. When it needs to be, time is circular.

"You are not at your post, Mali."

The Master's voice is melodious and warm. He has taken his young adult form, the one that is closest to her demure height while retaining enough maturity to command attention. Mali stands a little straighter. She's learned this from her time watching the earthlings. This is something their military does when they want to appear obedient.

"Forgive me, Master Chronos, I was just…" she bites her lip. She rehearsed beforehand, but that alone can't stand up to the imposing picture he paints. In the face of his outwardly mild countenance and the unimaginable power he wields beneath it, her mouth abandons her carefully prepared speech and reverts to the default. "I wish to give you my report on Jane Foster's progress."

She bows her head, a futile gesture overall. The door to safety is a hole in the blackness. A perfect rectangle twenty feet high, so that even the tallest of Chronos's servants can fit. It seems close and far away at the same time. One step will get her through to the other side, but it would have to stretch a mile.

Chronos's robes billow at the top of her vision. He's wearing dark blue today and she's glad of it. Otherwise he'd blend so completely into the background that his face would seem to hover. A white beard grows to his stomach. As ancient as he appears, he'll never hunch over with age.

"Proceed," he says, "but please be quick. Time is of the essence."

Time will move as fast or as slow as he wants it to, but Mali understands his point. "She is well. Mentally sound as one can be in this situation. I don't see her much since we began. She spends most of her time with Loki now. Rarely does she venture away from him."

"Hmm… she will be happy to hear it." Chronos rubs his suddenly unwrinkled chin. "Loki has become attached to her?"

"His emotions are hard to read," Mali says with a hint of a smile. Chronos returns it.

"Perhaps that was a foolish question on my part," he says. "The Trickster god will show nothing unless he wants to."

"You could never be called a fool, Master Chronos."

He grows into a man in the prime of his life, the white beard turning brown and shrinking. His powerful shoulders eclipse the unfurling threads of time almost completely.

"Now, Mali," he says, sounding a bit like a parent. "You may flatter all you wish, but you must _work_ to earn a pay raise."

"Of course, Master," she says, her hands clasped in front of her. She starts to back away as Chronos returns to his vigil. Everyone knows the conversation doesn't end until Chronos wants it to, and when he does, you say nothing more than 'thank you' and 'goodnight, Master.'

Mali prepares to leave with her mouth tightly shut. It's rude and she'll kick herself for it later, but if she lets even a syllable pass her lips, everything will spill out. The words are lodged in her throat, clamoring for release, but the moment has passed. She'll have to wait for another opportunity, if one ever comes again.

"Mali, one more thing."

She's mid-step and instinctively freezes at his words. This leaves her perilously close to an ungraceful fall on her face before she catches herself. "Yes sir?"

Chronos hasn't moved. He's still watching the gentle sway of the threads. They bump and swerve around each other in their ceaseless dance. Some threads shrink to nothing as a life is extinguished. Others are born to take their place. For one hundred days, the same lights have gone out in all the same ways. The thought alone inspires fear no mortal being should ever experience, but at least they'll never know.

"How do you feel about what we are doing?" Chronos asks.

For a while Mali has theorized that in addition to his many powers, her master also possesses a form of telepathy. It seems she was right about that. "You want my advice, Master?"

"Moreso your opinion," he says. "You may speak freely. Tell me your feelings."

Mali glances around, but they are alone as ever. The Mistress is not hiding just out of view. There is no place to hide her in the first place, no corners or nooks or crannies. It's just her and Chronos.

She still feels like she's entering the lion's den.

"I wonder if… I fear that in our quest to punish this sins of Loki, we might find ourselves going too far," she listens to her heart in her ears, pounding away. "I would never question your judgement or that of her grace. I will always defer back to you, but the thought still occurs to me that perhaps there is a better way."

Chronos says nothing. He doesn't nod or shake his head. His expression never falters. Mali doesn't know if that should worry or reassure her.

"You would stop if you were in my place," he says.

Mali swallows. Her once firm voice shrinks to a peep. "It's not my place to say, sir."

He appraises her. Mali forces her eyes up, though her head stays down. A show of diffidence he might not want, but she knows better than to give anything else.

"I see," he says. He takes one step closer. "You are troubled."

"No, sir."

"You are."

"Sir, I could never. Not when I have the pleasure of serving you."

"I appreciate your wish to not upset me," he says, "but Mali, have you forgotten why I hired you?"

She hasn't, but that just makes this harder. "My honesty," she whispers.

"You possess a strong moral quality unique to those who work for me," he says. "You came to me with nothing, no ambition, no prior experience, no one to vouch for your good standing, having never left your home planet in all the three hundred years you've been alive."

Sometimes, she wonders which thread floating in this infinite space belongs to her. Not that she'll ever ask. "I can never express how grateful I am to you and your lady for giving me a chance."

"And you don't have to," Chronos's voice becomes higher pitched, and the hand that takes hers is that of a boy. He grins at her, his mouth full of crooked teeth. Were his eyes not so old and full of wisdom, he would be no different from a human child. "All I want from you now is that same honesty. Please tell me the truth."

He's given her no other option, whether he intends to back her into a corner or not. Praying to the gods of her people, she chooses her words as carefully as she can. "Master Chronos, over the past one hundred cycles, I have watched Jane and Loki diligently. I've done all that you and your lady have asked of me. I will continue to for as long as it takes, but I do have to wonder..."

"How much longer _will_ it take," he fills in her thought. His voice deepens with each word and he gains a foot of height. "You're attached to them."

"No, sir," Mali lies.

"You know it is not my decision to make when they are freed."

 _'It should be. You are the ruler of time, not her.'_ "Yes, sir."

"Ah, but you are sensitive," he pats her arm affectionately. "I knew that when I assigned you to watch over them. You've come to sympathize with them."

"I…" Mali bites her lip. "I just…"

"I'm not mad," he says. "This is why you were chosen. You follow orders, and yet you are kind."

"I would never disobey you," she says, and this at least is the truth. She hasn't once failed to fulfill his command. Whatever she does beyond that— be it taking a walk when Jane is busy with Loki or making a trip to Manhattan every day before the changeover— doesn't factor in.

"Just remember that disagreeing doesn't equate to disobeying," he says, walking past her to the door. "I would understand completely if you think this is wrong."

He speaks softly, almost like he doesn't want her to hear. Mali would happily pretend she hadn't, but now there's one more thing gnawing at her. "Do you think it's wrong, sir?"

He doesn't stop or even slow down, but as fast as he moves, he never seems to get any closer to the entrance. "I think there are two kinds of people for whom we are capable of doing anything: those we love and those with something to learn. You'll find even I am not so infallible."

He leaves her with that cryptic remark and no more. He might've told her not to dawdle and get in position before Jane wakes up, but she's already on her way. Several threads stick out in the crowd before she goes. Tony Stark flying in his suit, looking for someone he won't find. Steve Rogers on the helicopter his face severe and his shield ready. Bruce Banner driving at sixty miles an hour to get there as fast as the thirty-year-old bike allows. Their routine will only change if Loki wants it to.

His thread doesn't float, nor does Jane's. They are stationary, held away from the rest, one many times longer than the other, sharing only the same golden hue like gilded chains.

**Mali plays her role to perfection. She watches Jane go about her morning before Loki arrives. He never does the same thing twice and sometimes it's hours before he's there lounging on her bed or walking out of the restroom. Where they go after that is not within Mali's domain. She watches from the observatory and no further.

Mali plays her role to perfection. She watches Jane go about her morning before Loki arrives. He never does the same thing twice and sometimes it's hours before he's there lounging on her bed or walking out of the restroom. Where they go after that is not within Mali's domain. She watches from the observatory and no further.

When they leave (for Europe she hears), Mali drags herself back to Chronos's realm with her eyes half shut. A nap sounds like the most wonderful concept in the universe. Her quarters are in the south wing, just past the courtyard and the grand gardens. The latter didn't exist before Chronos married; his wife sowed every seed and nurtured their plants like a mother. Now the flowers stand tall as trees to touch the sky. The hedges are a maze for adventurous workers on break to explore. It's where Chronos and his wife steal away when they want a moment alone, as they do now.

Mali knows she shouldn't stay. She should keep walking like she doesn't see them and not stop until she's safe in her quarters, but even though she's been awake since three cycles ago, the exhaustion has left her. She finds a place in the shadow of a pillar and waits. Before her eyes, Chronos takes his wife's hand. Kisses it. She seems placid for now. That can easily change.

"A new day dawns soon, my love," he says.

"In a sense," she says. She seems to glide more than walk. "He grows fond of Jane Foster. His hostility towards her lessens each day."

"You speak as though it troubles you," says Chronos. "Is that not what you wanted?"

The Mistress gazes out at the gardens. She beckons the single tree in the corner. It comes alive with her magic, the branches stretching to reach her. She caresses the fine wood, whispering words of encouragement. From one branch, an apple grows, red and ripe. She picks it, inspecting it in the light. The tree recedes, going back to its original form. The Mistress passes the fruit to her husband.

"Nature is so lovely," she says. Her fingers linger over the apple. With the brilliant color as a backdrop her pale skin looks even paler. She is pure white from head to toe. Even her hair looks like it was spun out of snow. "When I was little, I thought no one would ever understand me like the grass did. Or the trees…" She has some leaves between her fingers. She opens her fist to set them free.

"If nature could talk," Chronos says, embracing her from behind, "it would say only how it envies your beauty."

" _You_ said that when you were courting me."

"Did you think I was lying?" His nose brushes her hair. Wherever he wants to put it, Mali doesn't want to know.

"Never, my love," says the Mistress, her sigh almost content. "The face of a liar is ugly, and your visage is more perfect than any I've seen."

They share a kiss that goes on for an indeterminate amount of time. Mali doesn't know. She has to look away before she starts retching. She could live among sex driven animals for the rest of her life, and she'll never understand why the exchange of bodily fluids is considered romantic.

"I praise the day you came to this realm," says Chronos. "I cherish the love you have given me. Though sometimes, I fear, I do not understand your mind, I love it just as well as if I did."

"I do believe you said that, too." She rests her hands on the balcony. When Mali looks again, the Mistress's back is still to her. Chronos mimics her action. "I wish my mind could be at ease enough to enjoy your words. I fear that can't happen until this miserable task is complete."

"Yes," Chronos agrees. Just like that, the entire atmosphere of the room has shifted, and once more, Mali thinks it's time to leave. Once more, she does not. "Though you must know how much they have already suffered."

"It's only the beginning," says the Mistress. "Loki will endure far more before I'm through with him."

"And Jane?"

The Mistress pauses. Mali's ears are not especially sharp, so if she's making a sound, it doesn't reach her.

"Jane is necessary. She keeps him grounded. He would lose himself far too quickly without her, as we have seen."

A motion of her hand tears the sky in half. Inside the gap, Loki's actions from the tenth and eleventh cycles play out. His attempts to end the loop himself, his psychotic fit when he failed the first time, his despondence after the second. Had he not encountered Jane, this could've been his entire existence. His sanity wasting away until nothing of his former self remained.

"But has Jane not lost something too?" asks Chronos

Now she appears. Mali's heart sinks as Jane tries to convince her friends of what is happening during the eighteenth cycle. She remembers that. Loki came for her that same day and unknowingly put the second part of the Mistress's plan into action. Before that, she had been a wreck. Hopelessly confused and endlessly enraged by it. Mali had been there as she begged the sky for an answer in the fifth cycle, and when she spent the seventh and eighth in a deep depression. Jane hadn't seen her, but Mali saw everything.

"Jane has lost nothing she can't gain back," says the Mistress, banishing her image. "And she will. I'll make sure she does. I've seen her thread, and her fate has not changed."

"Fate can always change," says Chronos. A new face appears, that of Natasha Romanov. Mali sees her watching from afar as Clint Barton stands with another woman, children at his feet. He embraces his wife and Natasha looks away. "A single moment makes all the difference. It creates a ripple effect, changing the lives of everyone it touches."

The family of Clint Barton disappears. He's left alone and at Natasha's side. Together they watch a child in the distance. She's beautiful with her mother's hair and her father's eyes. Another couple hold her hands and lead her away. She's laughing, joyous and free, the happiest child in the world. Why shouldn't she be? She's a miracle child. A one in a million chance.

"I know what you're trying to impart on me, Chronos," she says, "but how much can a ripple do when each new dawn erases it?"

"More than you give credit for perhaps."

"Jane will live on," the Mistress snaps, as much as she would to her husband. "Someday, she will forget all of this. Loki will be nothing to her but a name. She will love Thor and he will love her. She will be his queen. That is her fate and it will not change."

"Magic can only do so much," Chronos says. "You know this best of all. You can take a memory, but you cannot take a feeling."

The Mistress harrumphs. Clint and Natasha disappear, replaced by a frosty night in Jotunheim. A baby swathed in paper thin blankets lays still on a burnt-out pyre. his tiny face is bluer than even a Jotunn's should be. Ice crystals form on his eyelashes. He twitches here and there, but the life is gone from him. It's only the standard seizing of a body recently vacated.

"Remember this?" the Mistress says bitterly.

Chronos nods. "The fate of Loki as it might have been."

"As it _should_ have been." The Mistress turns away, her porcelain features revealed to Mali for the first time, and they are marred by fury. "You foresaw this the moment he was born. Were it not for Odin, it would have been so, and all the pain he's caused never would have been. Not one good thing has ever come from Loki Laufeyson's existence!"

Chronos goes to her, his expression one of great hurt. When the Mistress sees it, she seems to know instantly her mistake.

"You ran from him many moons ago when he betrayed you." He holds her face in his hands. "It brought you to me. I can hold you now because of what Loki did, so will you forgive me if I cannot damn him as you have?"

"Only you," she says thickly, "but, my love, I would've found you without him. Your heart called to mine."

_'Please don't kiss again. Please, oh please, oh please—'_

"I believe you, but I'm thankful we never have to find out." Their foreheads touch and there is peace between them. Their hands are joined as they inhale each other's scent. This whole time, Chronos has been youthful, looking no older than an Earth man in his thirtieth year. He dwarfs his wife considerably in this form, yet they always seem equal in stature.

"Soon, Chronos, it will end. Loki will pay for his crimes, Jane will return to her life, and we shall all be free of him forever. This I promise you."

"By then, Jane might not want to be free," says Chronos. "Do you truly believe she cannot love him as you love me?"

"Loki is nothing like you," she states. "If you were anyone else, I'd strike you down for insulting my husband so."

He chuckles. "But if Jane is anything like you she might say the same about Loki."

"Jane is a credit to her race," the Mistress concedes. "I have watched her for far longer than this. She is the one who will bring Midgard back to the nine realms, and she will do it with a prince at her side. A true prince."

"That is the fate she will make for herself," says Chronos.

"Loki can give her nothing Thor can't a thousand times over," she spits. "He doesn't know how to love selflessly. It's beyond him. That's why Jane can never love him. She might think she does, but I know better, and if she was in my place, she would, too."

Now, finally, Mali knows she must leave. The sky is sewn back up, their portal into the world of memory gone with it. Chronos settles into comfortable silence with his wife. Her purpose reaffirmed, there's nothing more for him to say. As the couple enjoys their reprieve, Mali blends into the shadows, sliding across the floor at their feet. Her magic masks her energy from all, even them. She gets through to the other side and her Master and Mistress are none the wiser.

Her room is along a corridor lined with identical doors. They are not numbered or distinguishable in any way unless you live in one. Mali's is the twelfth on the left. Inside is a bed and a chair for reading. A window on the wall provides light and a view of the stars. She needs no other accommodations. Her kind doesn't know hunger or thirst the way other races do.

The door next to hers is open. A woman waits for her. She's taller than Loki, though smaller than a fully grown Jotunn. Her bright purple skin is flawless and stretched over sinewy muscle. Her fiery red hair falls past her shoulders. Accusing eyes stare her down, but Mali's bed is calling out to her and she isn't about to keep it waiting.

"You're treading on thin ice, you know."

Mali presses her hand to the door and it slides open. "I do not."

"Don't lie to me." Nex steps between her and the sweet release of sleep. "You think I don't know what you're doing? You have to stop now before someone finds out."

"Assuming there is anything to find out," Mali says calmly, "why have you not exposed me?"

"You're my friend," says Nex. "I don't know how they do it on your planet, but on mine, you value your friends. You don't rat on them. Other people aren't going to be so nice."

"Nex, I am doing everything our master commanded me to." Mali grits her teeth and wishes she had Nex's strength, to beat her fury into these walls until her knuckles bled.

"But what do you do when your work is done?" Nex steps closer, lowering her voice. There's no way to know how many rooms are currently occupied. "You go to New York before every changeover."

Mali blinks innocently. "I go where?"

"What are you telling them?"

"Telling whom?"

"Mali, don't play games. This is life or death." Nex grabs her and shakes her. "If her ladyship discovers what you're doing, you won't just be fired. She will _kill_ you."

"Master Chronos wouldn't let her."

"Do you want to take that chance?" Nex starts to pace. "Mali, I know you think you're helping, but Jane doesn't need to escape. Her ladyship will free her when the time is right and then it'll be over."

"Will it?" Mali demands. "Can you live with yourself in the meantime, Nex? You of all people should understand why I'm doing this!"

"And why is that? Because I watch over Jane, too?"

"You don't just _watch_ her," Mali hisses. "You care for her in a way I never could."

Nex looks away, pulling her hair out from behind her ears to cover her reddening cheeks. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Mali laughs. "I've learned a lot working here, Nex. Things I never could've fathomed. I may not understand the feeling of being in love, but I know what it looks like."

Nex growls in frustration and ducks into her room. She forgets to shut the door behind her. Mali would take this opportunity to run, but she's on a roll now and she isn't stopping. "You can pretend all you want that it's just a job, but this is wrong and you know it. Her ladyship is blinded by her hatred, but she can't make an evil act into a good one just because she feels justified."

"Then you're risking your life for _one Earth woman!_ " Nex throws a book against the wall and it cracks. Magic instantly fixes the damage, but it can do nothing to heal Nex's pride. Her eyes are watery and her breath hitching. For all her posturing, Mali knows the truth. Jane will never be 'just an Earth woman' to either of them.

"I thought you'd understand," Mali says. "And on some level, I think you do. I need to rest now before the changeover. I'll want to have everything ready before I return to my post. If you want to reveal me in the interim, so be it. You'll find that while my body is weak, I don't go down easy."

Mali leaves Nex to think. She'll be doing a lot of it. Part of Mali dreads waking up to find a lynch mob led by the Mistress waiting for her, but her rationale isn't ruled by fear. Nex will not tell. She values her friendship with Mali too much, and she values Jane even more. Whatever she tries to convince herself, Nex knows good from bad just like Mali. She will wag her finger and tsk and disapprove until—as the Earthlings say—the cows come home, but if the Mistress held her by the blade of a sword, she'd never get one word out of her.

**

It's five minutes before the changeover, and this time, Mali makes a pit stop. Loki brought Jane back to the observatory early and left after watching her fall asleep. She's alone now, unmonitored until the next morning comes. Not even the Mistress is near. Mali still expends every ounce of spare energy to mask her presence. She walks on the air, her body a light that shines on Jane's peaceful face. Four minutes until she is rudely awakened and that encompasses only a fraction of the heartbreak Mali feels as she looks down on her.

"Hello Jane, she says. "I know you can't hear me right now. Even if you were awake you wouldn't." Her light flickers as her energy field is nearly disrupted. She forces all the emotion out of her voice and focuses. She can do this. "I don't have much time. This could be all for nothing, but if you can only know what I say in your dreams, then listen now. You cannot give up, Jane. You cannot stop fighting. You are so much more than any of them know. You and Loki both. You _will_ find the answer together and you _will_ escape her wrath."

Mali steps back. The clock is ticking and she's down to seconds.

"I have a plan. It's not a great one, but it's something I learned from you. I think if there's even the slightest chance it can work, it's worth trying. That's what you would say, right?" Mali smiles. "Be strong, Jane. You may not know it, but you not alone. As long as she stands between you and victory, I will always be there to block her path while you make a new one."

Then she is gone, Jane melting away into nothing. Her eyes now behold the interior of Tony Stark's tower. She touches the massive screen and transfers her energy. It appears in the form of an email. She leaves only her name to identify it.

"Mali? Who the heck is Mali?"

"What's the problem, Stark?" Barton shouts at him.

"Nothing, Angel," Tony responds innocently. "Just some junk mail that slipped through the cracks. 'Number 106.' Huh… that's kinda weird."

Mali leaves. She can do no more for them and she needs to be at her post before Jane wakes up. Until their minds reset, they have these few precious seconds of knowing exactly what's happening to them. Everything Loki and Jane have yet to discover, she'll give them over and over again. So that every day, they'll feel little more like something is wrong. Every day until that feeling becomes an understanding, and that understanding, a knowing.

Some would ask, what can they do then? Is it even possible for this to work? How does a group of ragtag misfit humans stand against the master of time itself?

 _'Well,'_ says a voice in her head that sounds like Nex, _'Jane's only human, and look how far she's come.'_

This is how Mali comforts herself as Chronos spins the universe back into its original form, and the one hundred and seventh cycle begins with a song.

**_'Come on Eileen, oh I swear_ **

**_At this moment, you mean everything!_ **

**_With you in that dress, oh my thoughts I confess_ **

**_Verge on dirty_ **

**_Ah come on Eileen.'_ **


End file.
